Gustav Mahler, the charismatic and inspiring composer touched by the ‘curse’ of the 9th Symphony

If there was a musical metropolis in late 19th-century Europe, it was Vienna. The Habsburg power center stood as an epicenter of creativity, boasting figures like Gustav Mahler. This talented son of a humble Bohemian family, where he was born in 1860, eventually held the most coveted position in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He directed the Vienna Court Opera for a decade with meticulous and perfectionist rigor. This was just one of the many achievements of one of the most singular symphonists in the history of the genre.

What was the starting point of this composer and conductor's outstanding career? Why did unanimous acclaim for his impeccable trajectory elude him at times?

What were the sources of inspiration for this Jewish convert to Catholicism? In what context were his works, brimming with conceptual content due to his interest in philosophy, created? We explore the key aspects that illuminate the life and work of the creator of some of the most acclaimed pieces of post-Romanticism, with all due respect to Richard Strauss.

In this way, we can understand the particularities surrounding his Ninth Symphony , which we will hear on May 25th at the Palau de les Arts. It will be performed by Gustavo Gimeno, who will conduct the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana.

Gustav Mahler's Vienna

The musical taste of the last of the world's Catholic empires, the Austro-Hungarian, could be described as conservative. Mahler, however, opened the door to groundbreaking, shocking scores with movements of unimaginable length. Dissonant harmonies, abundant chromaticism, military fanfares, folk melodies… With an amalgamation of heterogeneous elements from diverse origins, he gave a twist to tradition.

Poisoned darts from the anti-Semitic press

This is how he illustrated his convictions, building a world with whatever he had at hand. That, in fact, was Mahler's definition of a symphony. This approach earned him criticism from the anti-Semitic press, an artist motivated by Schopenhauer's vitalism and interest in nature, but also by Nietzsche's initial pessimism.

During his brief time at university, he absorbed their respective musical worlds. The philosopher Siegfried Lipiner instructed him on the metaphysical undertones that Wagner brought to his work. Mahler remained faithful to these ideas, imbuing his lieder with a character that transcended the purely musical. It was precisely through his masterful performances of Wagner's operas (and Mozart's) that he began to earn his reputation as a conductor.

That young man, who graduated from the Vienna Conservatory at 18, launched himself into European stardom in theaters across the continent. The Court Opera awaited him, after his conversion to Catholicism, of course. And with it came its musicians, whom he compelled not only to interpret the scores, but to breathe new life into them. He earned his reputation as a tyrant and demanding conductor before taking the helm at the Metropolitan Opera House and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

From directing… to composing

Praise for his creative output was not as frequent. It was during the summers that he dedicated himself to composing, as his busy life left little time for such a laborious task. Known for this reason as the summer composer, Mahler poured all his frustrations, genius, and sorrows into those works he shaped among forests and lakes (he loved to lose himself in nature).

His extraordinary originality was the cause of Mahler's slow reappraisal, a process initially hampered by his Jewish heritage in an environment of rising Nazism. The end of World War II marked a turning point in his recognition. Figures such as Bruno Walter and Leonard Bernstein regularly included his music in the concert repertoires they conducted, granting him the fame he deserved.

His friends

Both his life and his creative abilities were influenced by some of his friendships. In Vienna, the artistic elite, determined to break with nationalism and romanticism and open new avenues of expression, met daily in cafés. Our protagonist frequented these cafés, having previously shared time with his counterpart Hugo Wolf at the conservatory. Like Mahler, who suffered the loss of one of his daughters to scarlet fever, the author of the Italienisches Liederbuch ( Italian Songbook ) was another brilliant mind of that century, which also experienced turbulent times.

Mahler was also a friend of Arnold Schoenberg, leader of the Second Viennese School and a pioneer of atonal composition. Schoenberg is, moreover, one of the composers who drew inspiration from Mahler's musical universe. To this list we must add the stage designer Alfred Roller, with whom he worked at the Vienna State Opera. And the painter Gustav Klimt. The composer of The Kiss saw him off at the train station before his departure for New York, after being dismissed from the Vienna State Opera in 1907.

Three years later, a few months before his death, Mahler consulted Sigmund Freud on the advice of Bruno Walter. He was skeptical of psychoanalysis, but he needed to heal his anguish over his beloved Alma's infidelity with the architect Gropius.

The curse of the 'Ninth Symphony'

It was during those final, agonizing years (between 1908 and 1909) that he composed his last complete work: his Ninth Symphony . It stands as the finest example of his mastery. This powerful and awe-inspiring work premiered posthumously (1912), conducted by his friend Walter with the Vienna Philharmonic.

With death as the central theme

Death seems to envelop this composition. Mahler poured his eternal suffering into it, fueled by family losses. To the most devastating, the death of one of his two daughters, must be added the deaths of ten of his fourteen siblings and his mother-in-law, who died of a heart attack during her granddaughter's funeral. He gave this piercing grief a structure identical to that of Tchaikovsky's famous Pathétique Symphony .

His exciting adagio

The cocktail of emotions was further intensified by other difficult episodes, such as his wife's infidelity and his heart problems, the cause of his death. The climactic moment of this Ninth Symphony reflects these circumstances. It is in its final movement, a haunting adagio, disturbing and alarming yet profoundly beautiful, that we perceive the full extent of his anguish. Mahler added a fragment of his Kindertotenlieder ( Songs for Dead Children ) to this fourth movement of the symphony, in reference to his young daughter. He also wrote the phrase, "On the mountaintops the day is beautiful," alluding to this personal tragedy.

The superstitious Mahler

His death placed him squarely on the list of composers touched by the so-called curse of the Ninth Symphony, a superstition in which Mahler himself believed. From Beethoven until Shostakovich, no musician had lived long enough to complete their Tenth Symphony. Between them, we find Schubert, Bruckner, Dvořák, and Atterberg.

The controversial figure of his wife Alma Mahler

Mahler's wife, Alma, the Austrian composer with whom he had his two daughters, deserves special mention. She was the muse of her first husband, who musically portrayed her in his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. This charismatic woman with an overwhelming personality initially made the sacrifice of dedicating herself to her marriage and serving as a proofreader for Mahler's works. Gustav was not interested in Alma's compositions, and she eventually fell in love with Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus. Her previous story would repeat itself with the architect. They married, and their daughter died (at age 19, from polio). Furthermore, the woman considered the most fascinating of the 20th century cheated on the artist with another scholar: the Jewish poet and novelist Franz Werfel. With him, she fled Nazi Germany to New York, after passing through Spain and Portugal.

The writer, who triumphed in Los Angeles with The Song of Bernadette , later adapted into a film, died in 1945, and Alma took up residence in New York. There she became a prominent cultural figure, thanks to Werfel's fame and the publication of her biography and the letters Mahler wrote to her. It was also in New York that she died, in 1964.

His lovers

Alma also had affairs with prominent figures in the arts. Indeed, her first kiss was with Gustav Klimt, who introduced her to Gustav Mahler himself. She also shared a bed with the composer Alexander von Zemlinsky, her music teacher; with the theater director Max Burckhardt; and with the painter Oskar Kokoschka. The latter's famous portrait, The Bride of the Wind , reflected the love he felt for her. Such was his devotion to the composer that when she left him, he commissioned a life-size doll of Alma, complete with all her details, to accompany him to the theater. Undoubtedly, delving into Gustav Mahler's biography helps us understand the reasons behind his work. And his Ninth Symphony , with its characteristic and sublime adagio, is the best vehicle for approaching the particularities of this composer and conductor for whom music held all the answers. The Palau de les Arts will soon reveal them.

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