Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahlerwas an Austrian late-Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 his...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth7 July 1860
CountryAustria
To write a symphony is, for me, to construct a world.
I don't choose what I compose. It chooses me.
For the last month I have been a strict vegetarian. The moral effects of this regime are immense, owing to the voluntary subjugation of the flesh and the resulting absence of desires. You will appreciate how full I am of this idea when I tell you that I expect it to work the regeneration of mankind. I advise you to change over to a natural way of life, with proper nourishment (wholemeal bread), and you will soon feel the benefit.
Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.
I am thrice homeless, as a bohemian, as an Austrian, and all over the world, you guessed it right I am Jewish
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.
The impressions of the spriritual experiences gave my future life its form and content.
I also had a brother who was like me a musician and a composer. A man of great talent, far more gifted than I. He died very young... he killed himself in the prime of his life.
We all return. It is this certainty that gives meaning to life and it does not make the slightest difference whether or not in a later incarnation we remember the former life. What counts is not the individual and his comfort, but the great aspiration to the perfect and the pure which goes on in each incarnation.
What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.
That which draws us by its mystical force; what every created thing, even the very stones, feels with absolute certainty as the center of its being... is the force of love. Christians call this "eternal blessedness." It is a necessity of man for growth and joy.
A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.
The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.
There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.