Thread: Writing a Paper about Gustav Mahler

Are there any internet sources I should check out for this paper? I've got a lot of CD liner notes, most of which contain biographical information, and I have the scores to several symphonies and recordings of all of them for musical reference.

The only problem is in keeping all of the information organized; realizing where to put biographical info and stuff about the music, etc. They both overlap so impossibly much... hard to wrap one's head around sometimes.

Thanks for any tips!

WV

This might help:

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Gustav_Mahler

or maybe not...

Originally Posted by Dim7

This might help:

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Gustav_Mahler

or maybe not...

I love that article! Most amazing thing I've ever read about Mahler, but something tells me it's been tampered with a bit...

Well apart from suggesting that you buy a well-researched professionally written biography of the man in book form I cant provide any sources.

I may be able to help with the second part, but youre going to have to provide more details on the aim of the essay and any specific areas of focus

Do you own any publication of his letters? It would be great idea to add selected fragments in order to support what you write. I know that it is possible to purchase good sets of lettets he wrote to his wife and his corespondence with R. Strauss.

A lot of universities and maybe some libraries have a the grove dictionary of music or the grove dictionary online. If you have access to this source, it would be good to use.

Originally Posted by Aramis

Do you own any publication of his letters? It would be great idea to add selected fragments in order to support what you write. I know that it is possible to purchase good sets of lettets he wrote to his wife and his corespondence with R. Strauss.

Yes, I have a book of letters actually. I'm using that.

I was aiming more toward internet sources, because I can't really go anywhere between now and Monday, which is when it's due. Rather short notice, yes, but that's just the way it turned out.

It's more or less a generic overview, part biographical and part music, but I couldn't help trying to make it a bit more. It's just too easy for me to write two pages about Mahler.

Quote:

"Mahler was born into a Jewish family in Kaliste, Bohemia. His parents moved to Jihlava, Moravia in the first year of his life, where Mahler spent his childhood. In 1875 he was admitted to the Vienna Conservatoire where he studied piano under Julius Epstein. Subsequently, Mahler attended lectures given by Anton Bruckner at Vienna University. His first major attempt at composition came with Das Klagende Lied which he entered in a competition as an opera (he later turned it into a cantata). However, he was unsuccessful, and turned his attention to conducting. After his first conducting job at Bad Hall, he took posts at a succession of increasingly larger opera houses; Ljubljana in 1881, Olomouc in 1882, Kassel in 1884, Prague in 1885, Leipzig in 1886 and Budapest in 1891. He then secured his first long-term post at the Hamburg Opera in 1891, where he stayed until 1897. While there, he took his summer vacations at Steinbach-am-Attersee, during which he concentrated on composition. He completed his Symphony No. 1 and the Lieder aus 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn' in this period. Mahler conducting Mahler conducting In 1897, Mahler converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism in order to secure a post as artistic director of the prestigious Vienna Court Opera (Jews were virtually prohibited from holding the post at that time). For the next ten years he stayed at Vienna, where he was noted as a great perfectionist. He ran the Opera for nine months of the year, spending the other three composing, mainly at Maiernigg, where he had a small house on the Wörthersee. There he composed his symphonies 4 through 8, as well as the 5 Rückert-Lieder, the Kindertotenlieder and his last song from texts in Des Knaben Wunderhorn entitled 'Der Tambourg'sell'. He married Alma Schindler (18791964) in 1902. They had two daughters, Anna (19041988) who later became a sculptor, and Maria Anna (19021907) who died of scarlet fever or diphtheria in 1907. In the same year he discovered he had heart disease (infective endocarditis), and he lost his job at Vienna, hounded out by a largely anti-semitic press after trying to promote his own music, which was not well received on the whole. While his 4th Symphony was well received by some, not until the performance of his Symphony No. 8 in 1910 did Mahler have a true public success with his music. The pieces he wrote after that were not performed in his lifetime. Mahler was coming under increasingly virulent anti-semitic attacks — in 1907 these became almost unbearable — when Mahler received an offer to conduct Metropolitan Opera in New York. He conducted a season there in 1908, only to be set aside in favor of Arturo Toscanini. Mahler returned to New York the next year to become conductor of the newly formed New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Around this time, he completed Das Lied von der Erde, and the Symphony No. 9, which turned out to be his last completed work. During his last visit to America in February 1911, he fell seriously ill and was taken back to Vienna at his request. He died there from a streptococcus infection on May 18, 1911 in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Austria), leaving his tenth symphony incomplete. His last word was: 'Mozart'. He is buried in Vienna, in the Grinzinger Cemetery."

I would keep it to mostly biographical, but you could use quotations from the music to illustrate certain aspects of his life at the time he wrote it.

Originally Posted by emiellucifuge

I would keep it to mostly biographical, but you could use quotations from the music to illustrate certain aspects of his life at the time he wrote it.

Yes, that's a really good way to go about it. I tried to write about the music separately and it just didn't work. Thanks for the suggestions everyone!