Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was born on 7 July 1860 in Kaliště, a citizen of the Austrian Empire and later of Cisleithania, working within the German language throughout his life. He received his formal education at the University of Vienna and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, training that prepared him for the range of roles he would come to occupy.
Mahler worked as a composer, conductor, chapelmaster, opera director, theatre manager, and bandleader — a career that moved across the concert hall and the opera house in equal measure. His compositions belong to the genres of classical music, symphony, and chamber music. Among his notable works are Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 2, Symphony No. 5, Symphony No. 8, and Symphony No. 9, a body of orchestral writing that spans much of his professional life and reflects the sustained ambition he brought to the symphonic form.
Mahler died on 18 May 1911 in Vienna, the city where he had pursued his education and where his life came to its close.
Quotes by Gustav Mahler
It is always the same with me; only when I experience something do I compose, and only when composing do I experience! After all, a musician’s nature can hardly be expressed in words.
Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one’s contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one’s way.
But it’s peculiar, as soon as I am in the midst of nature and by myself, everything that is base and trivial vanishes without trace. On such days nothing scares me; and this helps me again and again.
I have become a different person. I don’t know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier.
