Mahler’s First Symphony was first performed by the NY Philharmonic (under his direction) in 1909. The program notes for the occasion (found here) don’t not include any sort of analysis of the work (as is customary). In fact, the notes contain hardly any information about the work at all, rather…

In the words of Theodore Adorno, the final movement of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony “paints paradise in rustic anthropomorphous colors to give notice that it does not exist.” While I can concede the “rustic anthropomorphous colors,” the notion that paradise does not exist isn’t something that is conveyed in this moment…

The composition of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony is closely related to that of the Sixth’s. Mahler was working on the 2nd, 4th and final movements of the Seventh in 1904 while simultaneously finishing the outer movements of the Sixth. The coinciding time frame of both works’ composition often invites a comparison…

From appearances in modern media, to being conducted by Leonard Bernstein during the funeral Mass for Robert. F Kennedy, the Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony №5 has enjoyed a certain degree of fame, and could be considered Mahler’s most well known work today. Over time, this piece has amassed discourse concerning…

Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, is one riddled with both peculiarity and convention. Despite adhering to formal patterns from the classical period, even going as far as repeating the exposition in the first movements, there are also a great many irregularities. …

Mahler’s Third Symphony is full of peculiarities. Some might even say that this work hardly qualifies as a symphony, and Mahler would agree with them in part: “My calling it a symphony is really inaccurate, for it doesn’t keep to the traditional form in any way. But, to me ‘symphony’…

In the time I have spent perusing, scanning, and absorbing information about Mahler and his Second Symphony, it is clear that people really want to talk about the religious and/or philosophical implications in this work. Which is fine. No really, it is. There’s a lot to talk about on this…

For one reason or another, Gustav Mahler did not leave us with any complete operatic works. Be it because he was unprepared for such a laborious undertaking, found the genre restricting, or his manuscripts in progress were lost to time, the stars just didn’t align for such an occurrence. Despite…

Gustav Mahler has consistently been described within some kind of contrary binary. His conflicting nature and duality is most succinctly described in Leonard Bernstien’s 1967 article for High Fidelity Magazine Mahler: His time has come: In this article, Bernstein takes the time to ponder and contextualize the duplicitous nature of…