Mahler Symphony 8 Analysis

Austrian Gustav Mahler was born July 7, 1860, died May 18, 1911, Vienna, Austria. He was an Austrian Jewish composer conductor who had a passionate craving for music at an early age. Mahler composed and ten symphonies, but only nine completed. His tenth and final piece was still in the formative stages during the season of betrayal from his wife. According to Colin Matthews, The Tenth was composed at an especially fraught time for Mahler, with his marriage in crisis Alma was having an affair with the architect Walter Gropius and with the intensive preparations for the first performance of his Eighth Symphony (in September 1910) also preoccupying him. Yet he was able to produce what was probably as many as 180 pages of sketches …show more content…
Mahler places in his music his disappointments and his accomplishments, and it was felt throughout the one hour and twenty-five minutes of symphony eight. Not knowing the words that amplify Mahler’s thoughts in his creation did not deny me the privilege of sharing his sentiments because it came across forcefully in the sound effects coming from the voices, the solo selections, and the clever arrangement of the musical instruments. Mahler brought new value to the expression of music. I am convinced that Mahler’s upbringing gave him the extra zest needed to be a principal conductor and composer. According to Smith and Carson in the book, The Gift of Music: Great Composers and Their Influence, “Mahler the symphonist cannot be separated from Mahler the song composer … Mahler seeks to describe a problem fundamental to all his human being the reality of loneliness and death. In the music one hears the dualism of joy and …show more content…
There were times I found myself trying to picture what Mahler’s life and his music was like. Mahler’s eight symphonies becomes the perfect storytelling of a musical genius. Mahler possess a musical gift unlike any other, which he used wisely in expressing his life events; yet his hard work was never appreciated until after his death. Mahler’s determination is something to be admired. He went through some unpleasant interval of his life that would cause any man to give up, but somehow, he found the strength to pursue his passion. The devastating three misfortunes, Alma’s affair, the loss of his daughter, and his heart disorder hurled obscurities over his life. According to Matthews in Gustav Mahler’s life and death, alluded to some of Mahler’s regrettable moments. “He wrote to his conductor colleague Bruno Walter: ‘at one fell stroke, I have lost everything of clearness and reassurance that I have ever won for myself … now, at the end of my life, I must learn anew how to walk and