Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

In this week's Composer Of The Week, Donald Macleod explores Mahler's early years - from his humble birth in the Bohemian backwater of Kaliste to his triumphant installation as Director of the Vienna Opera at the age of 37.

Mahler's early years are often skipped over by biographers keen to feast on the juicy details of his tempestuous last decade...yet it was in this formative period that the composer wrote some of his very finest works, including his gargantuan, brilliantly original first four symphonies and a veritable plethora of solo songs.

Linking this week's episodes is a focus on the influence of 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn' - an anthology of German folk poetry collected by Gottfried von Arnim and Clemens Brentano that obsessed Mahler throughout his youth. Donald Macleod introduces a host of songs written to texts from the anthology, including all ten set by the composer in his collection entitled 'Lieder aus 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn' - as well as a number of rare early songs inspired by the poems.

Donald Macleod also explores the voluminous textual and musical links between Mahler's symphonies and the Wunderhorn poetry; we'll hear extended excerpts from the first three, and on Friday a complete performance of the apotheosis of his early period, his serene Fourth Symphony.

In the first of this week's exploration of Mahler's 'Wunderhorn' period, Donald Macleod looks at the composer's childhood and earliest works, including a rare Piano Quartet movement, and his extraordinary cantata 'Das Klagende Lied'.

Donald Macleod focuses on Mahler's childhood and earliest compositions.

Donald Macleod explores links between Mahler's early songs and his first symphonic work, including a rare performance of the orchestral movement 'Blumine'.

Donald Macleod explores links between Mahler's early songs and his First Symphony.

In today's episode, Donald Macleod introduces a work that helped secure his reputation: his Second Symphony, the 'Resurrection', and explores links between the work and Mahler's settings of poetry from the collection 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn'.

Donald Macleod presents more Mahler songs inspired by Des Knaben Wunderhorn.

In today's episode, Donald Macleod introduces sparkling arrangements of two songs by the American jazz musician and musicogist Uri Caine, as well as the finale of the immense Third Symphony, itself closely related to Mahler's 'Wunderhorn' settings.

Donald Macleod introduces arrangements of two Mahler songs by jazz musician Uri Caine.

To end this week's exploration of Mahler's early years, Donald Macleod introduces a complete performance of the composer's serene Fourth Symphony, the pinnacle of his first compositional period and his most profound fusion of song and symphony before 'Das Lied von Der Erde', a decade later.

Donald Macleod introduces a complete performance of Mahler's Symphony No 4.

This week Donald Macleod explores this alluring source, and with it the last decade of the composer's life - the 'Alma' years. It's a portrait which says as much about the biographer as her subject. We meet a seductress, magnetically drawn to the greatest artists of her time, and who admitted openly that her love was more for Mahler's creative powers than anything else. But she was also an essential part of Mahler's life, helping to create a stable background for a man utterly obsessed with music both as composer and conductor.

Through her, we glimpse Mahler's many passions and foibles: his quest for physical fitness, his dedication to his home city of Vienna despite the open hostility it returned him, and his emotional frailties which led him to a famed consultation with Sigmund Freud. We see Alma's weaknesses to, not least her marital infidelity which rocked their marriage in Mahler's last years.

The music includes many of his most impassioned works: the fateful 'hammer blows' of the Symphony no.6, the emotional devastation of the Kindertotenlieder encapsulating Mahler's response to the death of his brother in childhood, and the gargantuan 'Symphony of a Thousand' written in a flurry of emotion at his composition retreat.

There's also a rare chance to hear Alma Mahler's own songs, kept from publication until Mahler encouraged her to release them at the very end of his career. And we also hear from a landmark BBC broadcast, the first presentation of the posthumously completed Symphony no.10, a programme which Alma Mahler embargoed from repeat transmission. It's an insight not just into the compositional mind of its creator, but also Alma's ardent belief in herself as the guardian of his legacy.

To open the week, Donald Macleod sets the scene for Mahler's relationship with his wife, from her unflattering account of his clumsiness at their wedding to happy memories of the private symphony premieres he would give her at the piano.

Donald Macleod sets the scene for Mahler's relationship with his wife.

Donald charts Mahler's final turbulent years.

Gustav Mahler rose from humble beginnings on the fringes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to become one of the most powerful figures in the musical establishment. Nowadays his symphonies are almost guaranteed to fill concert halls, but during his lifetime Mahler made his name as a conductor.

Mahler's early years were spent in rural Bohemia, and the sounds and songs of the countryside were to have a lasting influence on his music. His early songs are inspired by teenage sweethearts, while a prizewinning piece of chamber music composed at the Vienna Conservatoire shows the influence of Brahms, Schubert and Wagner. Mahler's passionate affair with a married woman brought on a creative torrent that led to the completion of his first symphony.

Mahler is inspired by the countryside in Bohemia and works towards his First Symphony.

Gustav Mahler rose from humble beginnings on the fringes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to become one of the most powerful figures in the musical establishment. Nowadays his symphonies are almost guaranteed to fill concert halls, but during his lifetime Mahler made his name as a conductor.

Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn) was a major influence on Mahler's early songs and symphonies. Mahler loved its mixture of realism and fantasy, of the commonplace and the extraordinary, the tragic and the humorous.

Mahler finds inspiration for his songs and symphonies in folk poetry.

Gustav Mahler rose from humble beginnings on the fringes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to become one of the most powerful figures in the musical establishment. Nowadays his symphonies are almost guaranteed to fill concert halls, but during his lifetime Mahler made his name as a conductor.

Mahler had landed the most important job of his life, but his conducting duties in Vienna often prevented him from composing. Yet during the summer, in his woodland composing hut on the banks of Lake Attersee in Upper Austria, he would write some of his most enduring symphonies.

Symphony No 4 in G major (2nd mvt)

Cleveland Orchestra conducted by George Szell

In diesem Wetter (Kindertotenlieder)

Hermann Prey, baritone

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink

Symphony No 5 in C sharp minor (1st mvt)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein

5 Rückert-Lieder

Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano

NDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner

Producer: Callum Thomson.

Mahler lands the most important job of his career, at the Vienna Court Opera.

Gustav Mahler rose from humble beginnings on the fringes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to become one of the most powerful figures in the musical establishment. Nowadays his symphonies are almost guaranteed to fill concert halls, but during his lifetime Mahler made his name as a conductor.

Alma Schindler, known at the time as 'the most beautiful woman in Austria', entered Mahler's life around the turn of the 20th century. She initially found the composer abrupt and dogmatic, but their relationship sparked into life very quickly and they were engaged within three weeks, despite Mahler's reluctance about the age difference between them. Their relationship would determine the course of the rest of Mahler's life.

Symphony No 6 in A minor (2nd mvt) (Scherzo)

London Philharmonic Orchestra conduc ted by Klaus Tennstedt

Der Einsame im Herbst; Von der Jugend; Von der Sch怀nheit (Das Lied von der Erde)

Violeta Urmana, mezzo-soprano

Michael Schade, tenor

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez

Symphony No 7 (5th mvt)

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly

Producer: Callum Thomson.

Donald Macleod examines the influence on Mahler's music of his wife Alma.

Gustav Mahler rose from humble beginnings on the fringes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to become one of the most powerful figures in the musical establishment. Nowadays his symphonies are almost guaranteed to fill concert halls, but during his lifetime Mahler made his name as a conductor.

Mahler left the Vienna Court Opera to take up a lucrative position at the Metropolitan Opera, and later another at the New York Philharmonic. He would spend his final years travelling back and forth across the Atlantic and working on his most ambitious symphonies. A moment of personal crisis would colour the composition of his last work.

Symphony No 8 (Symphony of a Thousand) (Part I)

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, soloists and choruses, conducted by Georg Solti

Mahler, completed Deryck Cooke: Symphony No 10 (1st mvt) (excerpt)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Simon Rattle

Symphony No 9 (4th mvt)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein

Producer: Callum Thomson.

Donald Macleod explores Gustav Mahler's final years at the Met and New York Philharmonic.

Their relationship wasn't always the happiest, the terms he laid down for their marriage were far from fair, and she wasn't always faithful to her husband. But Alma Mahler exerted a powerful fascination on Gustav Mahler, and proved not only an inspiration but a also a very practical help for his egotistical genius.

Alma Schindler, the daughter of a renowned landscape painter, had certainly known other men before she met Gustav Mahler at the house of a mutual friend. Likewise, he had known and loved other women, albeit in the face of his implacably jealous sister Josephine. Alma, called by some the 'most beautiful woman in Vienna', was certainly a catch for the composer. But how big a catch was he for her, who already enjoyed the attentions of her composition teacher Zemlinsky? Gradually, Alma will fall in love with Mahler's music, and agrees to put aside her own efforts at composition.

Ging heut Morgen übers Feld

Gustav Mahler, piano roll

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen

Brigitte Fassbaender, mezzo-soprano

Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin

Riccardo Chailly, conductor

Symphony No 4 in G major (1st movement: Bedachtig; 2nd movement: in gem䀀chlicher Bewegung)

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Simon Rattle, conductor

Phantasie aus Don Juan; Serenade aus Don Juan

Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano

Ralf Gothoni, piano.

Exploring Mahler's music and its sometimes troubled relationship to Alma Schindler.

Their relationship wasn't always the happiest, the terms he laid down for their marriage were far from fair, and she wasn't always faithful to her husband. But Alma Mahler exerted a powerful fascination on Gustav, and proved not only an inspiration but a also a very practical support for his working and creative life.

In today's episode, the happy couple enjoy a working honeymoon in Moscow, and Alma is privileged to attend the premiere of Mahler's 3rd Symphony, when she truly acknowledges her husband's genius.

Liebst du um Sch怀nheit

Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, baritone

Daniel Barenboim, piano

Symphony 3 (4th movt: Sehr langsam, Misterioso; 5th movt: Lustig im Tempo und keck in Ausdruck)

Philharmonia Orchestra

Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano

Tiffin Boys' Choir

Lorin Maazel, conductor

Blicke mir Nicht

Um Mitternacht

Brigitte Fassbaender, mezzo-soprano

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

Riccardo Chailly, conductor

Symphony 5 (4th movt: Adagietto; 5th movt: Rondo)

NDR Sinfonieorchester

Klaus Tennstedt, conductor.

Donald Macleod focuses on the Mahlers' working honeymoon in Moscow.

Their relationship wasn't always the happiest, the terms he laid down for their marriage were far from fair, and she wasn't always faithful to her husband. But Alma Mahler exerted a powerful fascination on Gustav Mahler, and proved not only an inspiration but a also a very practical support for his working and creative life.

In today's programme we find Mahler composing extraordinary songs on the deaths of children just hours after kissing and hugging his own daughters. Tempting fate, maybe? Certainly that's what Alma Mahler thought. It's tempting also to see something premonitory about his 6th symphony - The 'Tragic' - which he sketched out at his idyllic summer retreat at Maiernigg on the W怀rthersee during the summer of 1904. And yet it was written at one of the calmest, most serene periods of Mahler's life - and possibly wouldn't have been written at all had Alma not managed to find the manuscript which Gustav had forgotten to bring with him!

Nun Will die Sonn' so hell aufgehen (Kindertotenlieder)

Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau, baritone

Berlin Philharmonic orchestra

Rudolf Kempe, conductor

Nun se'ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen (Kindertotenlieder)

Symphony 6, 1st movt: Allegro; 2nd movt: Scherzo)

New York Philharmonic Orchestra

Leonard Bernstein, conductor

Wenn dein Mutterlein tritt zur Tur herein (Kindertotenlieder)

Rudolf Kempe, conductor.

Donald Macleod focuses on Mahler's Kindertotenlieder and Sixth Symphony.

Their relationship wasn't always the happiest, the terms he laid down for their marriage were far from fair, and she wasn't always faithful to her husband. But Alma Mahler exerted a powerful fascination on Gustav Mahler, and proved not only an inspiration but a also a very practical support for his working and creative life.

In today's episode, the event about which Mahler had composed a cycle of songs (Kindertotenlieder or 'songs on the deaths of children') actually happens. The loss of the Mahler's eldest child is a numbing shock, prompting the couple to seek a change of scene as far away as New York. Alma finds consolation in her unhappiness through dancing with the man whom she would eventually marry. And Gustav will open up his heart on the psychiatrist's couch, when he visits Sigmund Freud.

Oft denk'ich sie sind nur ausgegangen (Kindertotenlieder)

Bryn Terfel, baritone

Philharmonia Orchestra

Giuseppe Sinopoli, conductor

Symphony No 7 (4th movement: Nachtlied)

Lorin Maazel, conductor

Symphony No 1 (2nd movement: Kraftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell)

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra

Rafael Kubelik, conductor

Symphony No 8 (Part 1)

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Klaus Tennstedt, conductor.

Donald Macleod explores the consequences of the death of the Mahlers' eldest daughter.

Their relationship wasn't always the happiest, the terms he laid down for their marriage were far from fair, and she wasn't always faithful to her husband. But Alma Mahler exerted a powerful fascination on Gustav Mahler, and proved not only an inspiration but a also a very practical support for his working and creative life.

In this final episode,Gustav finds musical inspiration in Chinese poetry, and the Mahlers pursue their interest in Chinese culture by visiting a New York opium den. Wracked by guilt over the deep unhappiness that had driven Alma into the arms of the young architect Walter Gropius, Mahler pours out some of his turbulent feelings into the score of his unfinished 10th Symphony - a work over which Alma would maintain a controlling interest after Mahler's death in 1911.

Der Einsame (from Das Lied von der Erde)

Kathleen Ferrier, contralto

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Bruno Walter, conductor

Symphony No 9 (1st movement: Andante comodo)

Berlin Philharmonic

Claudio Abbado, conductor

Mahler, completed by Deryck Cooke: Symphony 10 (4th movement: Scherzo)

BBC Philharmonic

Gianandrea Noseda, conductor.

Donald Macleod explains how Mahler found musical inspiration in Chinese poetry.

Love is a potent force in Mahler's creative armoury, from the unrequited passion for the soprano Johanna Richter that provided the impulse behind his despairing Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, to the fully requited passion for Alma Schindler that surfaces again and again throughout his work. When Mahler proposed to Alma barely three weeks after their first encounter in November 1901, his friends saw trouble ahead. He was, after all, nearly 20 years her senior - a man at the top of his profession, while she was barely yet a grown-up. Then there was the huge gulf between their personalities and lifestyles - he, work-obsessed and unworldly, she, in the words of Bruno Walter, Mahler's assistant at the Vienna Opera and later his tireless advocate, `a celebrated beauty, used to a brilliant social life`. But more than any of that, Mahler's love came with strings attached: he insisted that if they were to marry, she must give up her own aspirations as a composer and focus herself entirely on his needs. All considered, what could possibly go wrong?

Liebst du um Sch怀nheit

Christian Gerhaher, baritone

Orchestre symphonique de Montr退al

Kent Nagano, conductor

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (No 4, ‘Die zwei blauen Augen')

Katarina Karn退us, mezzo soprano

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

Susanna M䀀lkki, conductor

Wo die sch怀nen Trompeten blasen

Dietrich Henschel, baritone

Orchestre des Champs-Elys退es

Philippe Herreweghe, conductor

Symphony No 5 (4th mvt, Adagietto)

Philharmonia Orchestra

Giuseppe Sinopoli, conductor

Symphony No 6 (1st movement, Allegro energico, ma non troppo)

Berlin Philharmonic

Claudio Abbado, conductor

Produced by Chris Barstow for BBC Wales

The music and life of Gustav Mahler. Today, love is all around - but it comes at a price.

The death of his beloved younger brother Ernst, less than a month after the boy's thirteenth birthday, hit Mahler hard. Perhaps it marked the beginning of the preoccupation with the fragility of human existence that was to become such a hallmark of his work. It may also have inclined him towards the work of the poet Friedrich Rückert, whose Kindertotenlieder - Songs on the Death of Children - charted, in a cathartic cycle of 428 poems, his alternately despairing and accepting reaction to the death of two of his six children, Luise and, coincidentally, Ernst, in an outbreak of scarlet fever in 1833. You can only imagine Mahler's feelings of guilt when his own young daughter, Maria - ‘Putzi', as he affectionately called her - died from a combination of scarlet fever and diphtheria, just two years after he had finished setting a selection of Rückert's grief-laden verses.

Rückert-Lieder (Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen)

Kathleen Ferrier, contralto

Vienna Philharmonic

Bruno Walter, conductor

Symphony No 4 (2nd movement, In gem䀀chlicher Bewegung, ohne Hast)

San Francisco Symphony

Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor

Kindertotenlieder (Nun will die Sonn' so hell aufgeh'n)

Janet Baker, mezzo soprano

Hall退 Orchestra

John Barbirolli, conductor

Symphony No 6 (4th movement, Finale. Allegro moderato - Allegro energico)

Pierre Boulez, conductor

Produced by Chris Barstow for BBC Wales

The music and life of Gustav Mahler. Today, Mahler's obsession with human mortality.

Mahler is often quoted as declaring himself `thrice homeless - as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, as a Jew throughout the world - always an intruder, never welcomed.` But while he may have been culturally Jewish he certainly wasn't devoutly observant, and he wore his Judaism lightly enough to have no problem with converting to Catholicism when it suited him for professional purposes - in 1897 he was offered the directorship of the Vienna Court Opera, but only on condition that he switched faiths. When his friend the set designer Alfred Roller suggested that he compose a mass to celebrate his conversion, Mahler responded that he could write every movement except the Credo. But despite his lack of adherence to a particular creed, Mahler's work is shot through with a genuine religious sense, from the Second Symphony's epic depiction of the Day of Judgement to the existential angst of the Tenth Symphony's Purgatorio movement, via the childlike vision of heaven that brings the Fourth Symphony to a close, and the Eighth Symphony's decidedly ecumenical pairing of the Pentecost hymn ‘Veni, Creator Spiritus' with the closing scene from Part 2 of Goethe's Faust, whose concluding ‘Chorus Mysticus' celebrates the Eternal Feminine.

Symphony No 8 (Part 1, extract - ‘Veni creator spiritus')

Wiener S䀀ngerknaben

Wiener Singverein

Wiener Staatsopernchor

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Georg Solti, conductor

Symphony No 4 (4th movement, Sehr behaglich)

Miah Persson, soprano

Budapest Festival Orchestra

Ivကn Fischer, conductor

Symphony No 10 (3rd movement, Purgatorio - Unheimlich bewegt)

Vienna Philharmonic

Daniel Harding, conductor

Symphony No 2 (‘Resurrection') (5th movement, Finale)

Arleen Aug退r, soprano

Janet Baker, mezzo soprano

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

Simon Rattle, conductor

Produced by Chris Barstow for BBC Wales

The music and life of Gustav Mahler. Today, his ambivalent relationship to religion.

In the summer of 1910, with his personal life in turmoil, Mahler visited the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud for a consultation. Years later, Freud recalled that Mahler had related to him an incident from his childhood, in which he had run from the house to escape a particularly acrimonious confrontation between his parents. As he emerged onto the street, a hurdy-gurdy happened to be grinding out the popular Viennese song, ‘Ach, du lieber Augustin', from which point on, according to Freud's recollection of Mahler's account, `high tragedy and light amusement` became inextricably fused in his mind. Whether or not that specific incident was the wellspring, there's a strong strain of the sardonic, the ironic and the out-and-out grotesque running through Mahler's entire output.

Des Knaben Wunderhorn (Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt)

Brigitte Fassbaender, mezzo soprano

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

Riccardo Chailly, conductor

Symphony No 1 in D (‘Titan') (3rd movement, Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen)

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra

Rafael Kubelik, conductor

Symphony No 2 (3rd movement, In ruhig fliessender Bewegung)

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski, conductor

Symphony No 7 (3rd movement, Scherzo: Schatternhaft)

SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg

Michael Gielen, conductor

Symphony No 9 (3rd movement, Rondo-Burleske)

Berlin Philharmonic

Leonard Bernstein, conductor

Produced by Chris Barstow for BBC Wales

`It always seems strange to me that most people, when they talk about nature, can think only of flowers, little birds, forest fragrance, and so on. No one mentions the god Dionysus or the great Pan. There, now you have an idea of how I make music - always and everywhere, only the sound of nature!` That was Mahler writing to a friend shortly after he had finished work on his Third Symphony, and he wasn't just expressing himself figuratively. He seemed to wrest his music from the natural scenery that provided his favourite composing environments - like the rolling meadows and angular mountain peaks surrounding Toblach, high up in the Dolomites, where he composed Das Lied von der Erde and the Ninth Symphony, and embarked on what was to be the unfinished Tenth.

Lieder und ges䀀nge aus Jugendzeit (Abl怀sung im Sommer)

Karita Mattila, soprano

Ilmo Ranta, piano

Symphony No 3 (3rd movement, Comodo)

London Symphony Orchestra

Jascha Horenstein, conductor

Das Lied von der Erde (6. Der Abschied)

Brigitte Fassbaender, mezzo soprano

Berlin Philharmonic

Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor

Produced by Chris Barstow for BBC Wales

The music and life of Gustav Mahler. Today, Mahler's profound love of the natural world.