Episode 1: April 13th, 2020
Mahler’s Symphony no. 2, 1st Mvt
archival recording, Ottawa Symphony concert of April 3rd, 2017
Conductor Alain Trudel
Hear personal reflections, program notes and insights…and musical selections from our archive
Read All About It! Read the original programme notes written by Dr. David Gardner for the 1981 performance of Mahler’s symphony no. 2, featuring the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra.
Curators | Nos conservateurs
Dr. David Gardner
Ottawa Symphony Historian | Historien de l’ Orchestre symphonique d’ Ottawa
Alain Trudel
Ottawa Symphony Music Director | directeur musicale
Everything you always wanted to know about Gustav Mahler…but didn’t know how to ask
Born/Né le 7.7.1860, Kaliště, Bohemia (Austrian Empire| Empire autrichienne)
Died/decedé le 18.5.1911, Vienna/Vienne (Austria|Autriche)
Austrian Jewish composer and conductor, noted for his 10 symphonies and various songs with orchestra, which drew together many different strands of Romanticism. Although Mahler’s music was largely ignored for 50 years after his death, he was later regarded as an important forerunner of 20th-century techniques of composition and an acknowledged influence on such composers as Arnold Schoenberg, Dmitry Shostakovich, and Benjamin Britten.
A brief biography
Young Gustav discovered a piano in his grandmother's attic when he was six years old. Just four years later, he gave his first public performance. He graduated from the Vienna Conservatory in 1878. Sadly, few of his student compositions were preserved, so it's a little unclear what he may have sounded like at the time.
The life of a composer-conductor:
Following studies at the conservatory, Mahler moved around for posts at various music institutions including Leipzig Opera, the Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague, and back to Vienna for the post of director of the Vienna Court Opera, a post he'd hold for ten years.
Mahler went to New York to become director of the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic
On 21 February 1911, Mahler conducted his final concert at New York's Carnegie Hall. He was severely ill afterwards and confined to bed. He travelled back to Vienna, where he died on 18 May 1911
A Powerful Legacy
Mahler has had a great influence on contemporary composers and conductors, including:
Leonard Bernstein, composer of great 20th century music including the score of West Side Story, made popular by the eponymous 1961 film. Bernstein was a big Mahler fan. Following the devastating impact of the First World War, Mahler's emotionally potent soundscapes were perceived by some as out of kilter with the general mood of the times. Leonard Bernstein would often like to claim he renewed interest in the composer from 1960 onwards.
Eugene Ormandy: The Hungarian/US conductor Eugene Ormandy was another staunch supporter of Mahler's work after his death.
The Mahler Chamber Orchestra: British conductor Daniel Harding conducts the Mahler Chamber Orchestra during the Lucerne Festival at the Culture and Congress Centre in Lucerne Switzerland, 2006.
Sir Simon Rattle - Mahler's biggest champion? Sir Simon’s interpretations of Mahler symphonies have become legendary, from his days with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra onwards.
Seiji Ozawa conducts the Resurrection: Seiji Ozawa, director of Vienna State Opera Hall, conducts a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 ''Resurrection'' in 2006. The Resurrection is one of Mahler's most challenging yet rewarding works - a colossal meditation on the afterlife with some truly terrifying sounds.
With thanks to: Classic FM & Encyclopaedia Britannica
Romanticism is an orientation that characterized many works of art in Western civilization in the late 18th to the mid-19th century. Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the order, balance, and rationality that typified the time. In contrast, Romanticism favors the irrational, the imaginative, the emotional. Among the characteristic attitudes of Romanticism were a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature; a general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect; a turning in upon the self and a heightened examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities; a preoccupation with the genius, the hero, and the exceptional figure in general, and a focus on his passions and inner struggles; a new view of the artist as a supremely individual creator … In other words, get ready for Drama—with a capital D!
The Emergency Relief Fund of the Musicians’ Association of Local 180 (Ottawa-Gatineau) supports local musicians affected by the Covid-19 Pandemic.
To help, go to: ma180.org