classical music - andante

Introduction | Symphonies | Chronology | Filmography | Discography

INTRODUCTION

Gustav Mahler was early recognized as one of the greatest conductors of his time. Yet he was highly controversial as a composer, both during his life and in the years after his death. In 1933, because of his Jewish roots, the Nazis prohibited his music both in Germany and in the occupied countries. His last refuge was then the Anglo-Saxon world. It is only in the sixties that little by little his music found its rightful place in concert repertories, thanks largely to recordings.

Portrait taken in New York (1910)
[Centre Documentation
Musicale-BGM]

Mahler was long accused of being "banal" because of the heterogeneous nature of his melodic material and "sentimental" because of his expressiveness, which was thought to be self-indulgent. Today, his use of stylized folk material seems to be one of the most original and forward-looking aspects of his style. For us, he is an exceptional composer, not just because of the breadth and power of his ten symphonies, but also because of his place in history, right at the junction of two centuries and two eras—the romantic and the modern. His evolution is fascinating, from the First Symphony of his youth, which doesn’t resemble any other music of his time, all the way to the Ninth, which is very close to the future masterpieces of Berg and Webern. Theodor Adorno said that Mahler was the first musician since Beethoven to have a "late style".

Today, Mahler is one of the most popular composers of our time. There are countless recordings of his works. A philosopher, a theoretician of music, a wide-ranging thinker, a mystic far removed from any dogma, he also stands as one of the most universal artists in history. His music eludes definition. It contains everything that makes a world, all that makes humanity: serenity and rebellion, compassion and sarcasm, lyricism and violence, subjectivity and objectivity, sincerity and ambiguity, compassion and derision, the sublime and the commonplace, intuition and reflection, heroism and confidence. The unfathomable complexity of his works has given rise to countless essays, studies, dissertations, articles and books.

andante will collect a vast documentation on this great musician who for so long went unrecognized. You will find there a comprehensive chronology of his life, a catalogue and analyses of his works, a constantly updated bibliography and discography, as well as a list of the most important performances of his music throughout the world.