Gustav Mahler
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Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911); was the most successful emo musician of all time, although his follower Dmitri Shostakovich follows closely behind. In his spare time, he was also a highly successful dwarf. Mahler's works are definitively long and drawn-out, with little or no content to keep the audience's attention, are extremely whiny and shrill, and have been known to cause Sudden Ear Bleed Syndrome. In an email to long-term friend Anna von Mildenburg, he once cited:
- "I find my work draws great parallels with the music of Steve Reich, Philip Glass and other members of the 20th century American minimalist movement. All our work is characterized by recycled material, yet whilst theirs centres around a repeated motif that gradually grows and develops, mine focuses on not very much, and when material does appear, it is usually phrases from my previous works, or folk music that I've nicked from somewhere else, as I've run out of ideas."
Despite the label of "emo," which he apparently disapproved of, and the musical flaws, he is still recognized as a genius, and one of the greatest composers of the late 19th/early 20th century. For other examples of major historical and cultural figures who have received a disproportionate amount of recognition, see pages on Rothko, Mozart, Alexander Graham Bell, Socrates, Jesus, Father Christmas and my old maths teacher (who was utterly useless)...
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[edit] Life
[edit] Childhood and Education
- Mahler was born on 7 July 1860 in Iglau, Austro-Hungarian Empire. The son of a professional soprano singer and an accomplished armed robber, many musical theorists have speculated that these two influences sealed his fate as a thieving midget who stole folk-song melodies spanning back centuries in an attempt to pass them off as his own, often transforming them to the minor mode (see Symphony No 1), a distinctive foreshadowing of his later emo style.
- His first instrument was the accordion, per local tradition, but he quickly realized that he would never attain his childhood dream of becoming a martyr if everyone hated him for his instrument, so he took up the piano instead. Unlike Darshan Cowles, people were so relieved by this decision that little Gustav was offered a full scholarship to study piano and composition at the Vienna Conservatory in Salzburg.
- While at the Conservatory, Mahler won competitions for his solo piano playing, original composition, and track-and-field hammer throw, but generally earned crappy grades for having illegible handwriting, for staring out the window during class, and for not being long winded enough yet for teacher Anton Bruckner. During his years as a student, he was often disciplined for sexually abusing children and kittens. This sadism would later show up in his (slightly more) mature music to help shape his distinctive emo sound.
[edit] Early Career
- After graduation, Mahler realized that he had evolved a distinctive arm-waving technique from all his hammer-wielding, so he decided to have a shot at being a conductor. His first gig was at a small German opera house, where he was chosen on the basis that they had a shallow orchestra pit and Mahler was the only candidate short enough to stand in it and not get in the way of the action on stage. He nevertheless proved his ability to act scary and gained the respect to produce each opera to his own very exacting criteria. He ended up accepting conducting jobs all over Europe, and he insisted that all operas be sung in the language of whatever country he was in at the time, regardless of his own understanding of the language.
- While on tour, Mahler had many failed relationships with sopranos. He fell for them due to their beauty of voice and spirit, but he never had any interest in going further than that, no matter how much they wanted to. One such situation left Mahler pining over a singer who found another man because she wanted to do it; this inspired his early song cycle "Songs of a Hitchhiker," because said soprano and her new boyfriend chased Mahler out of town because he kept asking why she didn't like him anymore.
- This unhappy affair left Mahler looking for another job. He rejected an offer in Finland because the language scared him far too much for him to direct operas in it, so he figured, what the wiener schnitzel, why not go for the big bratwurst of all jobs, the Directorship of the Vienna Court Opera House? The administration in Vienna rejected Mahler on the spot because he was Jewish, so he ran into the local bargain store, bought a WWJD? bracelet, showed back up for an audition, and was accepted. To this date, musicologists make a much bigger deal of Mahler's "conversion" than it ever meant to him.
[edit] The Vienna Years
- The very shortness that won Mahler his first conducting job earned him a reputation as a tyrant in Vienna, since he could not be seen from the pit and thus had to scream and stomp as loudly as possible to give direction to the singers. Incidentally, his work with the Vienna Opera Orchestra was very formative to his style of orchestration.
- During the opera season, Mahler would lead many outstanding performances of masterpieces from Wagner to Puccini to Tchaikovsky, which influenced the length of his own pieces. In the summers, he would run off to secluded patches of lakeside forest, where he would have tiny huts constructed in which to compose, because the claustrophobia reminded him of the inspiration he achieved on the roof of his childhood home, which was a hole in the wall inhabited by large rodents who pretended to like his music to get in with the popular crowd. He would complete a symphony roughly every two years, and then inflict it on the Vienna Philharmonic for rehearsals during the next season, only to grant the premiere to another unsuspecting city that did not know what it was in for.
- In the middle of his Vienna career, Gustav met Alma Schindler, the daughter of a famous landscape painter. Alma aspired to be a composer herself in addition to already being a professional seducer of the stars. Shortly beforehand, Mahler had nearly died of an embarrassing medical condition that I'm sure he would prefer not to have discussed, so this near-death experience brought to his attention that if he wanted a family, he'd better get busy. So he fell head-over-heels for the beautiful Alma, and after making it clear to her that she was no longer allowed to compose love songs to other famous people, the two married. It was at this point that it became clear to Mahler that he actually had no idea where babies came from, since he'd spent so much time hiding from his parents and siblings as a child. Alma showed him what to do, and within three years he became the proud father of two beautiful daughters.
- For the first few years of the 20th Century, all was going so well in Mahler's life that he compensated by writing the darkest of his symphonies and songs. Most notable among these is the Sixth Symphony. This hero in this piece goes from bad to worse, and in the end gets pounded into the earth by three blows of a hammer. Originally Mahler was OK with this, as the specific instrumentation was devised so Mahler could pull out his old track-and-field equipment, but the more times he rehearsed the piece, the more he got into the idea that the he was the hero of the symphony and these hammer blows were attacking him and belonged to the Fates. In a crying fit of superstition and paranoia, Mahler edited out the third blow with red Sharpie, so as to prevent this death blow from befalling him. To this date, musicologists also debate on whether this was done emotionally or to aide the structure of the piece.
- Then, 1907 happened and Mahler didn't have to make up the angst anymore, particularly since removing the third hammer did squat. First, he lost the WWJD bracelet and the administration of the Vienna Court Opera suddenly noticed that Mahler was still Jewish, and used this as an excuse to mock him in the newspapers until he retired. Next, his older daughter seized up and died. The cause was originally thought to be malaria, but it was later discovered to be caused by a hex that Alma placed on her because she was so convinced that Mahler's "Kindertotenlieder" (Dead Baby Songs) cycle, which Mahler wrote to confront the fear of losing a child, was a bad idea. Mahler spazzed out so intensely after this incident that he literally busted a hole into his heart, and the discovery of this defect meant he had to take things easier than he was used to.
[edit] The Final Years
- After the events of 1907, Mahler was convinced that he was going to die very shortly, so he took it upon himself to postpone that as long as possible. He did this by stalling on writing his Ninth Symphony. It is a well established statistically significant fact that Ninth Symphonies, particularly long ones with slow bits, kill composers, so Mahler stealthily dodged the issue by following his Eighth with his Eight and a Halfth, Eight point Seventh, Square Root of 80th , and The Song of the Earth (subtitled “A Symphony”).
- Between working on these fractional symphonies, Mahler moved to New York City to conduct the Metropolitan Opera. Little did he know that being in New York gave Alma more opportunity to sleep around with zillions of other famous people. She had been doing this all the time in Vienna too, but Americans are far more gossipy than Austrians are. Therefore, it was only at this point did Mahler catch wind, thanks his overhearing the harp player talking about how he’d snogged a hot babe who was actually the mistress of architect Walter Gropius, who Mahler noticed had stowed away on the boat from Vienna to New York along with his family. Instead of firing the harp player and ditching Alma, Mahler embarked on his Ninth Symphony as a plea for Alma’s love, a chance to bribe the harp player with a good part, and as something of a suicide note as well.
- At some point in all this mess, Mahler became so desperate for relief from his existential pain that he went to infamous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud for help. Freud assured Mahler that everything came to pass as it did because Mahler clearly fancied his mother.
[edit] Death
- The completion of the Ninth Symphony weakened the physical structure of Mahler’s heart so intensely that he contracted some sort of disgusting infection from the streets of New York the second he decided to try writing a Tenth. He had just enough strength to make it through the boat ride back to Vienna before expiring dramatically in the middle of a thunderstorm on 18 May 1911. Some musicologists theorize that Mahler would have survived longer if the doctor who was supposed to be saving his life hadn’t been screwing Alma.
[edit] Music
Gustav Mahler was not a terribly prolific composer in terms of number of completed works, but the number of minutes of music thoroughly overcompensates for this. Stuffed full of musical notes and dynamics, conductors have to be careful not to include more than the recommended number of players when performing a Mahler symphony. Otherwise, the orchestra would exceed a critical mass and cause a black hole, which would not be well received by concert going audiences.
Musicologists are divided into two opposed camps regarding the division of Mahler's music. Some argue that his output can be divided into three main periods. Though these three are all very distinct from each other, they are all characterized by elements of nature, a healthy dose of psychological and spiritual contemplation, ample virtuosities in his instrumental writing, constant interruption of one theme into each other, a couple metric tons of neuroses, and a dash of salt.
However, in many current textbooks, the three periods are further sub-divided as such (the alternative period-breakdown is found in the section below):
The Early Period: includes the first two movements of Mahler's Symphony No. 1
The Middle Period: includes the remainder of Mahler's first symphony
The Second Middle Period: includes the first half of the first movement of the second symphony by Mahler
The Third Middle Period: includes the second and third movements of Mahler's Symphony No. 2
The Fourth Third (middle) Period: includes the remaining sections of the second symphony
The Fifth Third Period: includes the first sixty-fourth of the first movement of the third symphony
The Sixth Third Period: includes the next third of the first movement of the third symphony
The Seventh Third Period: includes the final sections of the first movement of the third symphony
The Late-Middle Period: includes almost all of the second movement of the third symphony
The Second Late-Middle Period: includes the last bits of the second movement and the first part of the third movement of the third symphony
The Third Late-Middle Period: includes the rest of the third movement of the third symphony
The Fourth Late-Middle Period: includes the entire fourth movement
The Fifth Late-Middle Period: includes the fifth movement
The Sixth Late-Middle Period: includes the first fifth of the first fourth of the sixth movement of the third symphony
The Seventh Late-Middle Period: includes the entire second fifth of the sixth movement of the third
The Late Period: includes the third fifth of the sixth movement of the third symphony
The Second Late Period: includes the final sections of the sixth movement of the third symphony
The Third Late Period (this was right after the first time he got laid by Alma, so he was pretty energetic): includes all the rest of his works
[edit] The Early Period
- Mahler’s early work is characterized by actually being happy, or by writing about sad or demented things in a way that still sounds happy. There are cheerful and fast melodies used to describe war, and militaristic melodies used to describe happy forest creatures playing in the Alpine meadows.
- Most of Mahler’s early output consisted of songs, which he then ripped off in his own symphonies. The average length of a piece at this time was still under an hour, and the orchestra size was still practical on a moderate payroll.
[edit] The Middle Period
- On the other hand, Mahler’s middle period is characterized by actually being angsty and depressing, or by writing about happy or pleasant things in a way that still sounds angsty and depressing. Around this time, he received his first descriptions involving the word "emo," which he disapproved of and consequently made him more upset. The orchestration becomes more complex and the melodies more fragmented between instruments. Mahler chose to go this direction because he was tired of being so assuredly good at his early style and felt like adopting a new manner of composing at which he would feel like a total amateur.
- This new orchestrating technique involved an awful lot of playing with weird percussion. Regular old drums were simply not good enough for Mahler anymore, so he decided to go out to his garden shed and write all of that stuff into a piece, including a pile of old sticks, a broken Firebolt broom, and his cherished childhood hammer. He did not need more cowbell, but he did forget the motor horn altogether.
- At this point, Mahler’s concentration shifted more from songs to symphonies. The average length of a piece ballooned to nearly an hour and a half, and the orchestra payroll suddenly became quite strained in that many of these works required hiring rabbits to play and reproduce in order to create more players in time for the last movement.
[edit] The Late Period
- Mahler’s late music is supposed to feel sad, contemplative, resigned, and transcendent, and it actually sounds that way, too. To the average listener, this music sounds very melodic and highly emo, but something about the push and pull of harmony contained a subliminal message that caused Arnold Schoenberg to flip out and start writing crazy atonal music, all the while giving Mahler the credit and/or blame. At the time of the premiere of the Eighth Symphony, an audience member fell down somewhere in between the screaming of the choruses and the pounding of the drums and was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with Sudden Ear Bleed Syndrome.
- This period consists entirely of symphonies, because the symphonies and their respective orchestras became so huge that they devoured the songs whole. Since you are what you eat, though, these symphonies still sound like really really long songs. The average length is still pushing an hour thirty, but the payroll has gone down again, both because Mahler had taken an interest in chamber music and because the stage manager was really sick of sweeping up rabbit doots after each concert.
[edit] List of Works
- Piano Quartet, in one and a half movements
- Das Klagende Lied, AKA The Song of Sorrow, Cantata for orchestra, choir, and depressed teenage soloists
[edit] Songs
- Drei Frühen Lieder, AKA Three Early Songs, for tenor and piano, not to be performed after noon
- Five Humoresques, on serious subjects, for voice and piano
- Lieder eines galaktischen Anhalters, AKA Songs of a Hitchhiker, for baritone (or gender bending mezzo-soprano) and orchestra
- Lieder aus “Des Knaben Wunderhorns”, AKA Songs from “The Youth’s Magic Horn,” for voice and piano or orchestra. (This was originally titled “Songs from ‘The Youth’s Magic Flute,’" but Mozart’s copyright lawyers were on Mahler’s case for that faster than American tourists to Oktoberfest.)
- Fünf rückwärtige Liederhosen, for voice and orchestra
- Kindertotenlieder, AKA Songs on the Death of Children, for hysterical singer and morose orchestra
- Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, for Liverpudlians with guitars (this is often incorrectly credited as being the work of Paul McCartney)
[edit] Symphonies
- Symphony No. 1, “Titanic,” for orchestra with contrabass obbligato and Klezmer Band
- Symphony No. 2, “Reanimation,” for orchestra, choir, belfry, really big organ, and undead vocal soloists
- Symphony No. 3, “Who Let the Horns Out,” for orchestra, unchained trombone soloist, boy band choir, mountains, and whoever has two hours to spare
- Symphony No. 4, “Sleigh Ride,” for orchestra, out-of-tune violin, and sugar-high soprano doubling religious gourmet chef
- Symphony No. 5, “Has More Than Just The Slow Movement,” for trumpet, French horn, hearse, harp and back-up band
- Symphony No. 6, “Angsty,” for orchestra, cowbell, and OMFG scary hammer
- Symphony No. 7, “Goodnight, Moon,” for mandolin, guitar, long thin metallic hanging tubes and orchestra
- Symphony No. 8, “Symphony of 6.0221415×1023,” for the entire population of Western Europe plus full orchestra
- Symphony No. 8.5, for orchestra and penguins
- Symphony No. 8.7, “Procrastination,” for orchestra
- Symphony No.
, “I Don’t Wanna Die!”, for very paranoid composer and orchestra
- Symphony No.
, “Oops”, for orchestra, composer who never did primary School maths, King_N00bert, Bongo Drums, Russian Goldfish, and Green Day
- Das Lied der Erde, AKA The Song of the Earth, for dead Chinese poets, tenor, contralto, and orchestra
- Symphony No. 9, “Inevitable,” for orchestra, with a nice harp part and apologetic love notes to Alma (not to be played)
- Symphony No. 10, “Unfinis..,” of which only the first movement is played[1].
| Decomposed German Composers |
| Johann Sebastian Bach | Ludwig van Beethoven | Johannes Brahms | Paul Hindemith | Gustav Mahler | Felix Mendelssohn | Robert Schumann | Richard Strauss | Richard Wagner |
- ↑ Mahler also orchestrated the second movement, but seeing as it is a scherzo with an upbeat mood its performance has been utterly repressed by superconductors eager to quell popular enthusiasm for Mahler's music.
