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172-425: Vienna ( / v i ˈ ɛ n ə / vee- EN -ə ; German: Wien [viːn] ; Austro-Bavarian : Wean [veɐ̯n] ) is the capital, most populous city , and one of nine federal states of Austria . It is Austria's primate city , with just over two million inhabitants. Its larger metropolitan area has a population of nearly 2.9 million, representing nearly one-third of

344-463: A humid subtropical ( Köppen : Cfa ) classification. The city has warm, showery summers, with average high temperatures ranging between 25 to 27 °C (77 to 81 °F) and a record maximum exceeding 38 °C (100 °F). Winters are relatively dry and cold with average temperatures at about freezing point. Spring is variable and autumn cool, with a chance of snow in November. Precipitation

516-633: A brief "late period" of elegiac works before his death in 1911. The main works of the first period are the first four symphonies, the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen song cycle and various song collections in which the Wunderhorn songs predominate. In this period songs and symphonies are closely related and the symphonic works are programmatic. Mahler initially gave the first three symphonies full descriptive programmes, all of which he later repudiated. He devised, but did not publish, titles for each of

688-427: A complete critical edition of Mahler's works, and to commemorate all aspects of the composer's life. Deryck Cooke and other analysts have divided Mahler's composing life into three distinct phases: a long "first period", extending from Das klagende Lied in 1880 to the end of the Wunderhorn phase in 1901; a "middle period" of more concentrated composition ending with Mahler's departure for New York in 1907; and

860-501: A composer. In 1891, Hungary's move to the political right was reflected in the opera house when Beniczky on 1 February was replaced as intendant by Count Géza Zichy , a conservative aristocrat determined to assume artistic control over Mahler's head. However, Mahler had foreseen that and had secretly been negotiating with Bernhard Pollini , the director of the Stadttheater Hamburg since summer and autumn of 1890, and

1032-452: A conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect, which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era . After 1945 his compositions were rediscovered by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into

1204-500: A contract was finally signed in secrecy on 15 January 1891. Mahler more or less "forced" himself to be sacked from his Budapest post, and he succeeded on 14 March 1891. By his departure he received a large sum of indemnity. One of his final Budapest triumphs was a performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni (16 September 1890) which won him praise from Brahms , who was present at the performances on 16 December 1890. During his Budapest years Mahler's compositional output had been limited to

1376-643: A decline in the Viennese population. After World War II, the Soviets used force to repatriate key workers of Czech, Slovak and Hungarian origins to return to their ethnic homelands to further the Soviet bloc economy. The population of Vienna generally stagnated or declined through the remainder of the 20th century, not demonstrating significant growth again until the census of 2000. In 2020, Vienna's population remained significantly below its reported peak in 1916. Under

1548-506: A dialect of German include the perception of its speakers, the lack of standardization, the traditional use of Standard German as a roofing language , the relative closeness to German which does not justify Bavarian to be viewed as an abstand language , or the fact that no country applied for Bavarian to be entered into the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . The difference between Bavarian and Standard German

1720-775: A different, probably Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in the area. Slovene speakers call the city Dunaj , which in other Central European Slavic languages means the river Danube , on which the city stands. Duchy of Austria 1156–1453 [REDACTED] Archduchy of Austria 1453–1485, 1490–1804 [REDACTED]   Principality of Hungary 1485–1490 [REDACTED]   Austrian Empire 1804–1867 [REDACTED]   Austria-Hungary 1867–1918 [REDACTED]   First Austrian Republic 1919–1934 [REDACTED]   Federal State of Austria 1934–1938 [REDACTED]   Nazi Germany 1938–1945 [REDACTED] Allied-occupied Austria 1945–1955 [REDACTED]   Austria 1955–present In

1892-705: A few more days until the Soviet Navy ’s Danube Flotilla naval force arrived with reinforcements. The remaining defending soldiers surrendered that same day. After the war, Vienna was part of Soviet-occupied Eastern Austria until September 1945. That month, Vienna was divided into sectors by the four powers: the US, the UK, France, and the Soviet Union and supervised by an Allied Commission . The four-power occupation of Vienna differed in one key respect from that of Berlin:

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2064-587: A few songs from the Wunderhorn song settings that became Volumes II and III of Lieder und Gesänge , and amendments to the First Symphony. Mahler's Hamburg post was as chief conductor, subordinate to the director, Bernhard Pohl (known as Pollini) who retained overall artistic control. Pollini was prepared to give Mahler considerable leeway if the conductor could provide commercial as well as artistic success. This Mahler did in his first season, when he conducted Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for

2236-562: A further depressing factor. Mahler and his family left Maiernigg and spent the rest of the summer at Schluderbach . At the end of the summer the villa at Maiernigg was closed and never revisited. Mahler made his New York debut at the Metropolitan Opera on 1 January 1908, when he conducted Wagner's Tristan und Isolde . In a busy first season Mahler's performances were widely praised, especially his Fidelio on 20 March 1908, in which he insisted on using replicas that were at

2408-467: A good-looking girl of good family. On the other hand, Mahler's family considered Alma to be flirtatious, unreliable, and too fond of seeing young men fall for her charms. Mahler was by nature moody and authoritarian—Natalie Bauer-Lechner, his earlier partner, said that living with him was "like being on a boat that is ceaselessly rocked to and fro by the waves." Alma soon became resentful because of Mahler's insistence that there could only be one composer in

2580-703: A key element in the Third Symphony completed in 1896; the song itself forms the finale to the Fourth (1900) and its melody is central to the whole composition. For the Second Symphony, written between 1888 and 1894, Mahler worked simultaneously on the Wunderhorn song, Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt ("The Sermon of St Anthony of Padua to the Fishes"), and on the Scherzo based on it which became

2752-547: A limited repertory of historical and folklore opera. By the time that Mahler began his duties, the progressive camp had gained ascendancy following the appointment of the liberal-minded Ferenc von Beniczky as intendant . Aware of the delicate situation, Mahler moved cautiously; he delayed his first appearance on the conductor's stand until January 1889, when he conducted Hungarian-language performances of Wagner's Das Rheingold and Die Walküre to initial public acclaim. However, his early successes faded when plans to stage

2924-476: A line which includes, among others, Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, Wagner, Bruckner and Brahms. From these antecedents Mahler drew many of the features that were to characterise his music. Thus, from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony came the idea of using soloists and a choir within the symphonic genre. From Beethoven, Liszt and (from a different musical tradition) Berlioz came the concept of writing music with an inherent narrative or "programme", and of breaking away from

3096-642: A major prestige project. Former suburbs were incorporated, and the city of Vienna grew dramatically. In 1918, after World War I , Vienna became capital of the Republic of German-Austria , and then in 1919 of the First Republic of Austria . From the late-19th century to 1938, the city remained a center of high culture and of modernism . A world capital of music, Vienna played host to composers such as Johannes Brahms , Anton Bruckner , Gustav Mahler , and Richard Strauss . The city's cultural contributions in

3268-422: A melodic simplicity that often approached banality", though it was too early to judge their ultimate worth. Alma Mahler survived her husband by more than 50 years, dying in 1964. She married Walter Gropius in 1915, divorced him five years later, and married the writer Franz Werfel in 1929. In 1940 she published a memoir of her years with Mahler, entitled Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters . This account

3440-487: A memorial to his lost brother. Neither the music nor the libretto of this work has survived. Bernhard Mahler supported his son's ambitions for a music career, and agreed that the boy should try for a place at the Vienna Conservatory . The young Mahler was auditioned by the renowned pianist Julius Epstein , and accepted for 1875–76. He made good progress in his piano studies with Epstein and won prizes at

3612-642: A novel and published it. Occupied Vienna is also depicted in the 1991 Philip Kerr novel, A German Requiem . The four-power control of Vienna lasted until the Austrian State Treaty was signed in May 1955 and came into force on 27 July 1955. By October, all soldiers had left the country. That year, after years of reconstruction and restoration, the State Opera and the Burgtheater , both on

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3784-423: A number of features with Yiddish . Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler ( German: [ˈɡʊstaf ˈmaːlɐ] ; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as

3956-741: A number of operettas that he presented during his time in Laibach. After completing this engagement, Mahler returned to Vienna and worked part-time as chorus-master at the Vienna Carltheater . From the beginning of January 1883, Mahler became conductor at the Royal Municipal Theatre in Olmütz (now Olomouc ) in Moravia . He later wrote: "From the moment I crossed the threshold of the Olmütz theatre I felt like one awaiting

4128-400: A permanent sense of exile, "always an intruder, never welcomed". The pedlar's son Bernhard Mahler, the composer's father, elevated himself to the ranks of the petite bourgeoisie by becoming a coachman and later an innkeeper. He bought a modest house in the village of Kaliště (German: Kalischt ), and in 1857 married Marie Herrmann, the 19-year-old daughter of a local soap manufacturer. In

4300-477: A pivotal role as a leading European music center, from the age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. Vienna was home to the world's first psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud . The historic center of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque palaces and gardens, and the late-19th-century Ringstraße , which is lined with grand buildings, monuments, and parks. In 2024, Vienna retained its position as most livable city per

4472-705: A potential director of the Royal Hungarian Opera in Budapest. He was interviewed, made a good impression, and was offered and accepted (with some reluctance) the post from 1 October 1888. In the early years of Mahler's conducting career, composing was a spare time activity. Between his Laibach and Olmütz appointments he worked on settings of verses by Richard Leander and Tirso de Molina , later collected as Volume I of Lieder und Gesänge ("Songs and Airs"). Mahler's first orchestral song cycle, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen , composed at Kassel,

4644-650: A retreat at Steinbach , on the banks of Lake Attersee in Upper Austria, and established a pattern that persisted for the rest of his life; summers would henceforth be dedicated to composition, at Steinbach or its successor retreats. Now firmly under the influence of the Wunderhorn folk-poem collection, Mahler produced a stream of song settings at Steinbach, and composed his Second and Third Symphonies there. Performances of Mahler works were still comparatively rare (he had not composed very much). On 27 October 1893, at Hamburg's Konzerthaus Ludwig, Mahler conducted

4816-511: A revised version of his First Symphony; still in its original five-movement form, it was presented as a Tondichtung ( tone poem ) under the descriptive name "Titan". This concert also introduced six recent Wunderhorn settings. Mahler achieved his first relative success as a composer when the Second Symphony was well-received on its premiere in Berlin, under his own baton, on 13 December 1895. Mahler's conducting assistant Bruno Walter , who

4988-415: A revolt by stagehands, whose demands for better conditions he rejected in the belief that extremists were manipulating his staff. The anti-Semitic elements in Viennese society, long opposed to Mahler's appointment, continued to attack him relentlessly, and in 1907 instituted a press campaign designed to drive him out. By that time he was at odds with the opera house's administration over the amount of time he

5160-527: A riot broke out in the city. The protestors, enraged by the decision, set the Palace of Justice ablaze. The police attempted to end the revolt with force and killed at least 84 protestors, with 5 policemen also dying. In 1933, right-wing Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss dissolved the parliament , essentially letting him run the country as a dictatorship , banned the Communist Party and severely limited

5332-407: A short recitative scene to Act III. In spite of numerous theatrical triumphs, Mahler's Vienna years were rarely smooth; his battles with singers and the house administration continued on and off for the whole of his tenure. While Mahler's methods improved standards, his histrionic and dictatorial conducting style was resented by orchestra members and singers alike. In December 1903 Mahler faced

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5504-542: A sore throat, which persisted. On 21 February 1911, with a temperature of 40 °C (104 °F), Mahler insisted on fulfilling an engagement at Carnegie Hall , with a program of mainly new Italian music, including the world premiere of Busoni's Berceuse élégiaque . This was Mahler's last concert. After weeks confined to bed he was diagnosed with bacterial endocarditis , a disease to which people with defective heart valves were particularly prone and which could be fatal. Mahler did not give up hope; he talked of resuming

5676-670: A third of its population. In 1804, during the Napoleonic Wars , Vienna became the capital of the newly formed Austrian Empire . The city continued to play a major role in European and world politics, including hosting the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15. The city also saw major uprisings against Habsburg rule in 1848 , which were suppressed. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 , Vienna remained

5848-656: A widespread prehistorical cult of Vindos , a Celtic deity who survives in Irish mythology as the warrior and seer Fionn mac Cumhaill. A variant of this Celtic name could be preserved in the Czech , Slovak , Polish and Ukrainian names of the city ( Vídeň , Viedeň , Wiedeń and Відень respectively) and in that of the city's district Wieden . The name of the city in Hungarian ( Bécs ), Serbo-Croatian ( Beč , Беч ) and Ottoman Turkish ( بچ , Beç ) has

6020-505: Is a Jew and who isn't." In such a volatile political atmosphere Mahler needed an early demonstration of his German cultural credentials. He made his initial mark in May 1897 with much-praised performances of Wagner's Lohengrin and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte . Shortly after the Zauberflöte triumph, Mahler was forced to take sick leave for several weeks, during which he was nursed by his sister Justine and his long-time companion,

6192-518: Is also the indefinite pronoun ebba(d) , "someone" with its impersonal form ebb(a)s , "something". It is inflected in the following way: The interrogative pronouns wea , "who", and wås , "what" are inflected the same way the indefinite pronoun ebba is inflected. Bavarians produce a variety of nicknames for those who bear traditional Bavarian or German names like Josef, Theresa or Georg (becoming Sepp'l or more commonly Sepp , Resi and Schorsch , respectively). Bavarians often refer to names with

6364-468: Is an alternative naming many High German dialect speakers regard justified. Bavaria and Austria officially use Standard German as the primary medium of education. With the spread of universal education, the exposure of speakers of Bavarian to Standard German has been increasing, and many younger people, especially in the region's cities and larger towns, speak Standard German with only a slight accent. This accent usually only exists in families where Bavarian

6536-505: Is called Hausname (en: name of the house) and is seldom used to name the person, but more to state where they come from or live or to whom they are related. Examples of this are: Bayerish iz a grupe dyalektn afn dorem funem daytshishn shprakh-kontinuum. Sholem-aleykhem, ikh bin Peter un ikh kum fun Minkhn. Lize/Lizl hot zikh (hotsekh) tsebrokhn dem fus. ikh hob (kh'hob) gefunen gelt. The dialects can be seen to share

6708-761: Is commonly considered to be a dialect of German , but some sources classify it as a separate language : the International Organization for Standardization has assigned a unique ISO 639-3 language code ( bar ), and the UNESCO lists Bavarian in the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger since 2009; however, the classification of Bavarian as an individual language has been criticized by some scholars of Bavarian. Reasons why Bavarian can be viewed as

6880-467: Is generally moderate throughout the year, averaging around 600 mm (23.6 in) annually, with considerable local variations, the Vienna Woods region in the west being the wettest part (700 to 800 mm (28 to 31 in) annually) and the flat plains in the east being the driest part (500 to 550 mm (20 to 22 in) annually). Snow in winter is common, even if not so frequent compared to

7052-434: Is larger than the difference between Danish and some varieties of Norwegian or between Czech and Slovak . The word Bavarian is derived from the name of the people who settled Bavaria along with their tribal dialect. The origin of the word is disputed. The most common theory traces the word to Bajowarjōz , meaning 'inhabitants of Bojer land'. In turn, Bojer ( Latin : Boii , German : Boier ) originated as

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7224-499: Is perhaps most well known for its Gemeindebauten , public housing buildings. Between 1925 and 1934, over 60,000 new apartments were built in the Gemeindebauten. Apartments were assigned on the basis of a point system favoring families and less affluent citizens. In July 1927 , after three nationalist far-right paramilitary members were acquitted of the killing of two social democratic Republikanischer Schutzbund members,

7396-612: Is plentiful. Remains of the military camp have been found under the city, as well as fragments of the canal system and figurines. Close ties with other Celtic peoples continued through the ages. The Irish monk Saint Colman (or Koloman, Irish Colmán , derived from colm "dove") is buried in Melk Abbey and Saint Fergil (Virgil the Geometer) served as Bishop of Salzburg for forty years. Irish Benedictines founded twelfth-century monastic settlements; evidence of these ties persists in

7568-745: Is preferred in the mass media . Ludwig Thoma was a noted German author who wrote works such as Lausbubengeschichten in Bavarian. There is a Bavarian Misplaced Pages . Also, the official FC Bayern Munich website was available in Bavarian. Notes: Vowel phonemes in parentheses occur only in certain Bavarian dialects or only appear as allophones or in diphthongs. Nasalization may also be distinguished in some dialects. Bavarian has an extensive vowel inventory, like most Germanic languages. Vowels can be grouped as back rounded, front unrounded and front rounded. They are also traditionally distinguished by length or tenseness . * These are typically used in

7740-579: Is reflected in the music, which originally was written as a five-movement symphonic poem with a descriptive programme. One of these movements, the "Blumine", later discarded, was based on a passage from his earlier work Der Trompeter von Säckingen . After completing the symphony, Mahler composed a 20-minute symphonic poem, Totenfeier "Funeral Rites", which later became the first movement of his Second Symphony . There has been frequent speculation about lost or destroyed works from Mahler's early years. The Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg believed that

7912-468: Is restricted to use as the language of writing and the media. It is therefore often referred to as Schriftdeutsch ("written German") rather than the usual term Hochdeutsch (" High German " or "Standard German"). Given that Central German and Upper German together comprise the High German languages , out of which the then new, written standard was developed and as opposed to Low German , that

8084-513: Is spoken regularly. Families that do not use Bavarian at home usually use Standard German instead. In Austria, some parts of grammar and spelling are taught in Standard German lessons. As reading and writing in Bavarian is generally not taught at schools, almost all literate speakers of the language prefer to use Standard German for writing. Regional authors and literature may play a role in education as well, but by and large, Standard German

8256-563: Is the lingua franca . Although there exist grammars, vocabularies , and a translation of the Bible in Bavarian, there is no common orthographic standard. Poetry is written in various Bavarian dialects, and many pop songs use the language as well, especially ones belonging to the Austropop wave of the 1970s and 1980s. Although Bavarian as a spoken language is in daily use in its region, Standard German, often with strong regional influence,

8428-600: Is the seat of the Metropolitan Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna , in which is also vested the exempt Ordinariate for Byzantine-Rite Catholics in Austria; its Archbishop is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn . Many Catholic Churches in central Vienna feature performances of religious or other music, including masses sung to classical music and organ. Some of Vienna's most significant historical buildings are Catholic churches, including

8600-728: The "curse of the Ninth Symphony" that he believed had affected fellow-composers Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner. On 19 September 1908 the premiere of the Seventh Symphony , in Prague, was deemed by Alma Mahler a critical rather than a popular success. For its 1908–09 season the Metropolitan management brought in the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini to share duties with Mahler, who made only 19 appearances in

8772-960: The Austrian Armed Forces shelled the Karl-Marx-Hof , a civilian housing estate, and the Schutzbund surrendered. On 15 March 1938, three days after German troops had first entered Austria, Adolf Hitler arrived in Vienna. 200,000 Austrians greeted him at the Heldenplatz , where he held a speech from a balcony in the Neue Burg, in which he announced that Austria would be absorbed into Nazi Germany . The persecution of Jews started almost immediately, Viennese Jews were harassed and hounded, their homes and businesses plundered. Some were forced to scrub pro-independence slogans off

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8944-607: The Economist Intelligence Unit , and has spent every year since 2015 in the top 2 places, bar 2021 due to the COVID-19 lockdowns . The place is mentioned as Οϋι[νδ]όβονα (Oui[nd]obona) in the 2nd century AD (Ptolemy, Geography , II, 14, 3); Vindobona in the 3rd century ( Itinerarium Antonini Augusti 233, 8); Vindobona in the 4th century ( Tabula Peutingeriana , V, 1); Vindomana ab. 400 ( Notitia Dignitatum , 145, 16); Vindomina, Vendomina in

9116-506: The Middle High German period, from about the 12th century. Three main dialects of Bavarian are: Differences are clearly noticeable within those three subgroups, which in Austria often coincide with the borders of the particular states. For example, each of the accents of Carinthia, Styria, and Tyrol can be easily recognised. Also, there is a marked difference between eastern and western central Bavarian, roughly coinciding with

9288-646: The New York Philharmonic . Mahler's œuvre is relatively limited; for much of his life composing was necessarily a part-time activity while he earned his living as a conductor. Aside from early works such as a movement from a piano quartet composed when he was a student in Vienna, Mahler's works are generally designed for large orchestral forces, symphonic choruses and operatic soloists. These works were frequently controversial when first performed, and several were slow to receive critical and popular approval; exceptions included his Second Symphony , and

9460-485: The OSCE . In 2001, the city center was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site . In July 2017, it was moved to the list of World Heritage in Danger . Vienna has been called the "City of Music" due to its musical legacy, as many famous classical musicians such as Beethoven , Brahms , Bruckner , Haydn , Mahler , Mozart , Schoenberg , Schubert , Johann Strauss I and Johann Strauss II lived and worked there. It played

9632-771: The Ringstraße , reopened to the public. In the Autumn of 1956, Vienna accepted many Hungarian refugees , who had fled Hungary after an attempted revolution . The city experienced another wave of refugees after the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia in 1968, as well as after the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991. In 1972 the construction of the Donauinsel and the excavation of the New Danube began. In

9804-744: The Soviet air force . Only after the Allies had taken Italy did the next raids commence. From 17 March 1944, 51 air raids were carried out in Vienna. Targets of the bombings were primarily the city's oil refineries . However, around a third of the city center was destroyed, and culturally important buildings such as the State Opera and the Burgtheater were burned, and the Albertina was heavily damaged. These air raids lasted until March 1945, just before

9976-675: The St. Stephen's Cathedral ( Stephansdom ), Karlskirche , Peterskirche and the Votivkirche . On the banks of the Danube is a Buddhist Peace Pagoda , built in 1983 by the monks and nuns of Nipponzan Myohoji . Vienna is located in northeastern Austria, at the easternmost extension of the Alps in the Vienna Basin . The earliest settlement, at the location of today's inner city , was south of

10148-646: The Vienna Secession movement. A year later, Mahler appointed him chief stage designer to the Hofoper, where Roller's debut was a new production of Tristan und Isolde . The collaboration between Mahler and Roller created more than 20 celebrated productions of, among other operas, Beethoven's Fidelio , Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide and Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro . In the Figaro production, Mahler offended some purists by adding and composing

10320-522: The Western and Eastern blocs , which deeply distrusted each other. The city experienced an economic upturn due to the Marshall Plan . The atmosphere of four-power Vienna is the background for Graham Greene 's screenplay for the film The Third Man (1949). The film's theme music was composed and performed by Viennese musician Anton Karas using a zither . Later he adapted the screenplay as

10492-428: The "deep thinker" is transcended by the splendour of Mahler the musician. Except for his juvenilia, little of which has survived, Mahler composed only in the media of song and symphony, with a close and complex interrelationship between the two. Donald Mitchell writes that this interaction is the backcloth against which all Mahler's music can be considered. The initial connection between song and symphony occurs with

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10664-407: The 12 children born to the family in the city, only six survived infancy. Jihlava was then a thriving commercial city of 20,000 people, in which Gustav was introduced to music through the street songs of the day, through dance tunes, folk melodies and the trumpet calls and marches of the local military band. All of these elements would later contribute to his mature musical vocabulary. When he

10836-418: The 16th century of the Habsburg emperors of the Holy Roman Empire with an interruption between at the turn to the 17th century until 1806, becoming an important center in the empire. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Christian forces twice stopped Ottoman armies outside Vienna, in the 1529 siege of Vienna and the 1683 Battle of Vienna . The Great Plague of Vienna ravaged the city in 1679, killing nearly

11008-399: The 1st century, the Romans set up the military camp of Vindobona in Pannonia on the site of today's Vienna city center near the Danube with an adjoining civilian town to secure the borders of the Roman Empire . Construction of the legionary camp began around 97 AD. At its peak, Vindobona had a population of around 15,000 people. It was a part of a trade and communications network across

11180-587: The 2021 census, 49.0% of Viennese were Christian. Among them, 31.8% were Catholic , 11.2% were Eastern Orthodox , and 3.7% were Protestant , mostly Lutheran , 34.1% had no religious affiliation, 14.8% were Muslim , and 2% were of other religions, including Jewish. One sources estimates that Vienna's Jewish community is of 8,000 members meanwhile another suggest 15,000. Based on information provided to city officials by various religious organizations about their membership, Vienna's Statistical Yearbook 2019 reports in 2018 an estimated 610,269 Roman Catholics, or 32.3% of

11352-509: The 21st century. Born in Bohemia (then part of the Austrian Empire ) to Jewish parents of humble origins, the German-speaking Mahler displayed his musical gifts at an early age. After graduating from the Vienna Conservatory in 1878, he held a succession of conducting posts of rising importance in the opera houses of Europe, culminating in his appointment in 1897 as director of the Vienna Court Opera (Hofoper). During his ten years in Vienna, Mahler—who had converted to Catholicism to secure

11524-772: The 6th century ( Jordanes , De origine actibusque Getarum , 50, 264). The English name Vienna is borrowed from the homonymous Italian name. The German name Wien comes from the name of the river Wien , mentioned ad UUeniam in 881 ( Wenia- in modern writing). The name of the Roman settlement on the same emplacement is of Celtic extraction Vindobona , probably meaning "white village, white settlement" from Celtic roots, vindo- , meaning "white" (Old Irish find "white", Welsh gwyn / gwenn , Old Breton guinn "white, bright" > Breton gwenn "white"), and -bona "foundation, settlement, village", related to Old Irish bun "base, foundation" and Welsh bon , same meaning. The Celtic word vindos may reflect

11696-405: The Empire. Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius may have died here in 180 AD during a campaign against the Marcomanni . After a Germanic invasion in the second century the city was rebuilt. It served as a seat of the Roman government until the fifth century, when the population fled due to the Huns invasion of Pannonia. The city was abandoned for several centuries. Evidence of the Romans in the city

11868-439: The First Symphony was too mature to be a first symphonic work, and must have had predecessors. In 1938, Mengelberg revealed the existence of the so-called "Dresden archive", a series of manuscripts in the possession of the widowed Marion von Weber. According to the Mahler historian Donald Mitchell , it was highly likely that important Mahler manuscripts of early symphonic works had been held in Dresden; this archive, if it existed,

12040-411: The German folk-poem collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn ("The Youth's Magic Horn"), which would dominate much of his compositional output for the following 12 years. On 17 May 1888, Mahler suddenly resigned his Leipzig position after a dispute with the Stadttheater 's chief stage manager, Albert Goldberg . However, Mahler had secretly been invited by Angelo Neumann in Prague (and accepted

12212-471: The Löw sanatorium in Vienna, where he developed pneumonia and slipped into a coma. Hundreds had come to the sanitorium during this brief period to show their admiration for the great composer. After receiving treatments of radium to reduce swelling on his legs and morphine for his general ailments, he died on 18 May. On 22 May 1911 Mahler was buried in the Grinzing cemetery  [ de ] , as he had requested, next to his daughter Maria. His tombstone

12384-620: The Met, his last performance being Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades on 5 March 1910. Back in Europe for the summer of 1909, Mahler worked on his Ninth Symphony and made a conducting tour of the Netherlands. The 1909–10 New York Philharmonic season was long and taxing; Mahler rehearsed and conducted 46 concerts, but his programmes were often too demanding for popular tastes. His own First Symphony, given its American debut on 16 December 1909,

12556-533: The Nazi regime, 65,000 Jews were deported and murdered in concentration camps by Nazi forces; approximately 130,000 fled. By 2001, 16% of people living in Austria had nationalities other than Austrian, nearly half of whom were from former Yugoslavia ; the next most numerous nationalities in Vienna were Turks (39,000; 2.5%), Poles (13,600; 0.9%) and Germans (12,700; 0.8%). As of 2012, an official report from Statistics Austria showed that more than 660,000 (38.8%) of

12728-828: The Parliament, the French in Hotel Kummer on Mariahilferstraße, the Americans in the National Bank , and the British in Schönnbrunn Palace . The division of the city was not comparable to that of Berlin . Although the borders between the sectors were marked, travel between them was freely possible. During the ten years of the four-power occupation, Vienna was a hotbed for international espionage between

12900-795: The Royal Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague by the theatre's newly appointed director, the famous Angelo Neumann . In Prague, the emergence of the Czech National Revival had increased the popularity and importance of the new Czech National Theatre , and had led to a downturn in the Neues Deutsches Theater 's fortunes. Mahler's task was to help arrest this decline by offering high-quality productions of German opera . He enjoyed early success presenting works by Mozart and Wagner, composers with whom he would be particularly associated for

13072-451: The Soviet troops started the Vienna offensive . The Red Army , who had previously marched through Hungary , first entered Vienna on 6 April. They first attacked the eastern and southern suburbs, before moving on to the western suburbs. By the 8th they had the center of the city surrounded. The following day the Soviets started with the infiltration of the city center. Fighting continued for

13244-740: The Vienna Philharmonic subscription concerts in September 1898, the concerts committee had unanimously chosen Mahler as his successor. The appointment was not universally welcomed; the anti-Semitic press wondered if, as a non-German, Mahler would be capable of defending German music. Attendances rose sharply in Mahler's first season, but members of the orchestra were particularly resentful of his habit of re-scoring acknowledged masterpieces, and of his scheduling of extra rehearsals for works with which they were thoroughly familiar. An attempt by

13416-417: The Viennese population have full or partial migrant background, mostly from Ex-Yugoslavia, Turkey, Germany, Poland, Romania and Hungary. From 2005 to 2015 the city's population grew by 10.1%. According to UN-Habitat , Vienna could be the fastest growing city out of 17 European metropolitan areas until 2025 with an increase of 4.65% of its population, compared to 2010. Religion in Vienna (2021) According to

13588-715: The Viennese premiere of his Second Symphony; 17 February 1901 saw the first public performance of his early work Das klagende Lied , in a revised two-part form. Later that year, in November, Mahler conducted the premiere of his Fourth Symphony, in Munich , and was on the rostrum for the first complete performance of the Third Symphony , at the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein festival at Krefeld on 9 June 1902. Mahler "first nights" now became increasingly frequent musical events; he conducted

13760-541: The Viennese public's general distrust of young artists: "Once, when an amazing exception occurred and Gustav Mahler was named director of the Court Opera at thirty-eight years old, a frightened murmur and astonishment ran through Vienna, because someone had entrusted the highest institute of art to 'such a young person' ... This suspicion—that all young people were 'not very reliable'—ran through all circles at that time." Zweig also wrote that "to have seen Gustav Mahler on

13932-455: The Weber family was complicated by Mahler's alleged romantic attachment to Carl von Weber's wife Marion Mathilde (1857–1931) which, though intense on both sides – so it was rumoured by for example English composer Ethel Smyth – ultimately came to nothing. In February and March 1888 Mahler sketched and completed his First Symphony , then in five movements. At around the same time Mahler discovered

14104-493: The Western and Southern regions of Austria. Vienna is composed of 23 districts ( Bezirke ). Administrative district offices in Vienna, called Magistratische Bezirksämter, serve functions similar to those in the other Austrian states (called Bezirkshauptmannschaften), the officers being subject to the mayor of Vienna; with the notable exception of the police, which is under federal supervision. Bavarian language Bavarian

14276-417: The audience walked out. Mahler and other sympathetic students later prepared a piano version of the symphony, which they presented to Bruckner. Along with many music students of his generation, Mahler fell under the spell of Richard Wagner , though his chief interest was the sound of the music rather than the staging. It is not known whether he saw any of Wagner's operas during his student years. Mahler left

14448-588: The bar that existed against the appointment of a Jew to this post by what may have been a pragmatic conversion to Catholicism in February 1897. Despite this event, Mahler has been described as a lifelong agnostic. As he waited for the Emperor 's confirmation of his directorship, Mahler shared duties as a resident conductor with Joseph Hellmesberger Jr. (son of the former conservatory director) and Hans Richter , an internationally renowned interpreter of Wagner and

14620-484: The border between Austria and Bavaria. In addition, the Viennese dialect has some characteristics distinguishing it from all other dialects. In Vienna, minor, but recognizable, variations are characteristic for distinct districts of the city. Before the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia , the linguistic border of Bavarian with Czech was on the farther side of the Bohemian Forest and its Bohemian foreland

14792-400: The capital of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918). In 1910, Vienna had more than two million inhabitants and was the third largest city in Europe after London and Paris. Around the start of the 20th century, Vienna was the city with the second-largest Czech population in the world (after Prague ). After World War I, many Czechs and Hungarians returned to their ancestral countries, resulting in

14964-470: The capital of it and all its successor states. Throughout the modern era Vienna has been among the largest German-speaking cities in the world, being the largest in the 18th and 19th century, peaking at two million inhabitants before it was overtaken by Berlin at the beginning of the 20th century. Vienna is host to many major international organizations , including the United Nations, OPEC and

15136-606: The capital of what became the Austro-Hungarian Empire . The city functioned as a center of classical music, for which the title of the First Viennese School (Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven) is sometimes applied. During the latter half of the 19th century, Vienna developed what had previously been the bastions and glacis into the Ringstraße , a new boulevard surrounding the historical town and

15308-471: The central area of the city, known as the first district, constituted an international zone in which the four powers alternated control on a monthly basis. The city was policed by the four powers on a day-to-day basis using the "four soldiers in a jeep" method, which had one soldier from each nation sitting together. The four powers all had separate headquarters, the Soviets in Palais Epstein next to

15480-482: The choral Eighth Symphony. Cooke believes that the Eighth stands on its own, between the middle and final periods. Mahler had by now abandoned all explicit programmes and descriptive titles; he wanted to write "absolute" music that spoke for itself. Cooke refers to "a new granite-like hardness of orchestration" in the middle-period symphonies, while the songs have lost most of their folk character, and cease to fertilise

15652-510: The city were arrested. Adolf Eichmann held office in the expropriated Palais Rothschild and organized the expropriation and persecution of the Jews. Of the almost 200,000 Jews in Vienna, around 120,000 were driven to emigrate and around 65,000 were killed. After the end of the war, the Jewish population of Vienna was only about 5,000. In 1942 the city suffered its first air raid , carried out by

15824-471: The composer Alban Berg called the Ninth "the most marvellous thing that Mahler ever wrote". None of these final works were performed in Mahler's lifetime. Mahler was a " late Romantic ", part of an ideal that placed Austro-German classical music on a higher plane than other types, through its supposed possession of particular spiritual and philosophical significance. He was one of the last major composers of

15996-425: The composer's head was "not only full of the sound of Bohemian bands, trumpet calls and marches, Bruckner chorales and Schubert sonatas. It was also throbbing with the problems of philosophy and metaphysics he had thrashed out, above all, with Lipiner". From June to August 1880, Mahler took his first professional conducting job, in a small wooden theatre in the spa town of Bad Hall , south of Linz . The repertory

16168-533: The composer's life and achievements. The Mahler family came from eastern Bohemia , now in the Czech Republic, and were of humble circumstances—the composer's grandmother had been a street pedlar. Bohemia was then part of the Austrian Empire ; the Mahler family belonged to a German-speaking minority among Bohemians, and was also Jewish . From this background the future composer developed early on

16340-400: The concert season, and took a keen interest when one of Alma's compositions was sung at a public recital by the soprano Frances Alda , on 3 March. On 8 April the Mahler family and a permanent nurse left New York on board SS Amerika bound for Europe. They reached Paris ten days later, where Mahler entered a clinic at Neuilly , but there was no improvement; on 11 May he was taken by train to

16512-519: The conductor of the original Ring cycle at Bayreuth in 1876. Director Wilhelm Jahn had not consulted Richter about Mahler's appointment; Mahler, sensitive to the situation, wrote Richter a complimentary letter expressing unswerving admiration for the older conductor. Subsequently, the two were rarely in agreement, but kept their divisions private. Vienna, the imperial Habsburg capital, had recently elected an anti-Semitic conservative mayor, Karl Lueger , who had once proclaimed: "I myself decide who

16684-552: The conservatory in 1878 with a diploma but without the silver medal given for outstanding achievement. He then enrolled in the University of Vienna (he had, at his father's insistence, sat and with difficulty passed the Matura , a highly demanding final exam at a Gymnasium , which was a precondition for university studies) and followed courses which reflected his developing interests in literature and philosophy. After leaving

16856-532: The country's population. Vienna is the cultural , economic , and political center of the country, the fifth-largest city by population in the European Union , and the most-populous of the cities on the Danube river . The city lies on the eastern edge of the Vienna Woods ( Wienerwald ), the northeasternmost foothills of the Alps , that separate Vienna from the more western parts of Austria, at

17028-512: The direction of the concerts. In the summer of 1892 Mahler took the Hamburg singers to London to participate in an eight-week season of German opera—his only visit to Britain. His conducting of Tristan enthralled the young composer Ralph Vaughan Williams , who "staggered home in a daze and could not sleep for two nights." However, Mahler refused further such invitations as he was anxious to reserve his summers for composing. In 1893 he acquired

17200-421: The end of each of his first two years. For his final year, 1877–78, he concentrated on composition and harmony under Robert Fuchs and Franz Krenn . Few of Mahler's student compositions have survived; most were abandoned when he became dissatisfied with them. He destroyed a symphonic movement prepared for an end-of-term competition, after its scornful rejection by the autocratic director Joseph Hellmesberger on

17372-535: The entire season. One of these was a much-praised performance of Smetana's The Bartered Bride on 19 February 1909. In the early part of the season Mahler conducted three concerts with the New York Symphony Orchestra . This renewed experience of orchestral conducting inspired him to resign his position with the opera house and accept the conductorship of the re-formed New York Philharmonic . He continued to make occasional guest appearances at

17544-438: The essence of Mahler's music in the theme of struggle, in the tradition of Beethoven. However, according to Schonberg, Beethoven's struggles were those of "an indomitable and triumphant hero", whereas Mahler's are those of "a psychic weakling, a complaining adolescent who ... enjoyed his misery, wanting the whole world to see how he was suffering." Yet, Schonberg concedes, most of the symphonies contain sections in which Mahler

17716-522: The event, that Alma had begun an affair with the young architect Walter Gropius . Greatly distressed, Mahler sought advice from Sigmund Freud , and appeared to gain some comfort from his meeting with the psychoanalyst. One of Freud's observations was that much damage had been done by Mahler's insisting that Alma give up her composing. Mahler accepted this, and started to positively encourage her to write music, even editing, orchestrating and promoting some of her works. Alma agreed to remain with Mahler, although

17888-542: The existing musical sketches, used parts of other Weber works, and added some composition of his own. The premiere at the Stadttheater , on 20 January 1888, was an important occasion at which several heads of various German opera houses were present. (The Russian composer Tchaikovsky attended the third performance on 29 January.) The work was well-received; its success did much to raise Mahler's public profile, and brought him financial rewards. Mahler's involvement with

18060-578: The family and that she had given up her music studies to accommodate him. "The role of composer, the worker's role, falls to me, yours is that of a loving companion and understanding partner ... I'm asking a very great deal – and I can and may do so because I know what I have to give and will give in exchange." She wrote in her diary: "How hard it is to be so mercilessly deprived of ... things closest to one's heart." Mahler's requirement that their married life be organized around his creative activities imposed strains, and precipitated rebellion on Alma's part;

18232-440: The family name coming first (like da Stoiber Ede instead of Edmund Stoiber ). The use of the article is considered mandatory when using this linguistic variation. In addition, nicknames different from the family name exist for almost all families, especially in small villages. They consist largely of their profession, names or professions of deceased inhabitants of their homes or the site where their homes are located. This nickname

18404-547: The first half of the 20th century included, among many, the Vienna Secession movement in art, the Second Viennese School , the architecture of Adolf Loos , the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein , and the Vienna Circle . The city of Vienna became the center of socialist politics from 1919 to 1934, a period referred to as Red Vienna ( Das rote Wien ). After a new breed of socialist politicians won

18576-649: The first performances of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies at Cologne and Essen respectively, in 1904 and 1906. Four of the Rückert-Lieder , and Kindertotenlieder , were introduced in Vienna on 29 January 1905. During his second season in Vienna, Mahler acquired a spacious modern apartment on the Auenbruggergasse and built a summer villa on land he had acquired next to his new composing studio at Maiernigg. In November 1901, he met Alma Schindler ,

18748-536: The first professional public performance of a Mahler work. An ardent, but ultimately unfulfilled, love affair with soprano Johanna Richter led Mahler to write a series of love poems which became the text of his song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen ("Songs of a Wayfarer"). In January 1884, the distinguished conductor Hans von Bülow brought the Meiningen Court Orchestra to Kassel and gave two concerts. Hoping to escape from his job in

18920-474: The first time and gave acclaimed performances of the same composer's Tannhäuser and Siegfried . Another triumph was the German premiere of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin , in the presence of the composer, who called Mahler's conducting "astounding", and later asserted in a letter that he believed Mahler was "positively a genius". Mahler's demanding rehearsal schedules led to predictable resentment from

19092-435: The following day. This meeting led to a rapid courtship; Mahler and Alma were married at a private ceremony on 9 March 1902. Alma was by then pregnant with her first child, a daughter Maria Anna, who was born on 3 November 1902. A second daughter, Anna , was born in 1904. Friends of the couple were surprised by the marriage and dubious of its wisdom. Burckhard called Mahler "that rachitic degenerate Jew", unworthy for such

19264-415: The following year Marie gave birth to the first of the couple's 14 children, a son named Isidor, who died in infancy. Two years later, on 7 July 1860, their second son, Gustav, was born. In December 1860, Bernhard Mahler moved with his wife and infant son to the city of Jihlava (German: Iglau ), where Bernhard built up a successful distillery and tavern business. The family grew rapidly, but of

19436-470: The form of Vienna's great Schottenstift monastery (Scots Abbey), once home to many Irish monks. In 976, Leopold I of Babenberg became count of the Eastern March , a district centered on the Danube on the eastern frontier of Bavaria . This initial district grew into the duchy of Austria . Each succeeding Babenberg ruler expanded the march east along the Danube, eventually encompassing Vienna and

19608-520: The great European opera houses. The New York Times , reporting Mahler's death, called him "one of the towering musical figures of his day", but discussed his symphonies mainly in terms of their duration, incidentally exaggerating the length of the Second Symphony to "two hours and forty minutes". In London, The Times obituary said his conducting was "more accomplished than that of any man save Richter", and that his symphonies were "undoubtedly interesting in their union of modern orchestral richness with

19780-468: The grounds of copying errors. Mahler may have gained his first conducting experience with the Conservatory's student orchestra, in rehearsals and performances, although it appears that his main role in this orchestra was as a percussionist. Among Mahler's fellow students at the Conservatory was the future song composer Hugo Wolf , with whom he formed a close friendship. Wolf was unable to submit to

19952-533: The hope of improving the boy's results, his father sent him to the New Town Gymnasium in Prague, but Gustav was unhappy there and soon returned to Jihlava. On 13 April 1875 he suffered a bitter personal loss when his younger brother Ernst (b. 18 March 1862) died after a long illness. Mahler sought to express his feelings in music: with the help of a friend, Josef Steiner, he began work on an opera, Herzog Ernst von Schwaben ("Duke Ernest of Swabia"), as

20124-607: The influence of the Social Democratic Party . This led to a civil war between the right-wing government and socialist forces the following year, which started in Linz and quickly spread to Vienna. Socialist members of the Republikanischer Schutzbund barricaded themselves inside the housing estates and exchanged fire with the police and paramilitary groups. The fighting in Vienna ended after

20296-661: The lands immediately east. In 1155, Henry II, Duke of Austria moved the Babenberg family residence with the founding of the Schottenstift from Klosterneuburg in Lower Austria to Vienna. From that time, Vienna remained the center of the Babenberg dynasty. Hungary occupied the city between 1485 and 1490. Vienna became at the turn to the 16th century the seat of the Aulic Council and subsequently later in

20468-697: The last of his Des Knaben Wunderhorn settings he started his Fourth Symphony , which he completed in 1900. By this time he had abandoned the composing hut at Steinbach and had acquired another, at Maiernigg on the shores of the Wörthersee in Carinthia , where he later built a villa. In this new venue Mahler embarked upon what is generally considered as his "middle" or post- Wunderhorn compositional period. Between 1901 and 1904 he wrote ten settings of poems by Friedrich Rückert , five of which were collected as Rückert-Lieder . The other five formed

20640-419: The local elections they engaged in a brief but ambitious municipal experiment. Social democrats had won an absolute majority in the May 1919 municipal election and commanded the city council with 100 of the 165 seats. Jakob Reumann was appointed by the city council as city mayor. The theoretical foundations of so-called Austromarxism were established by Otto Bauer , Karl Renner , and Max Adler . Red Vienna

20812-476: The marriage was nevertheless marked at times by expressions of considerable passion, particularly from Mahler. In the summer of 1907 Mahler, exhausted from the effects of the campaign against him in Vienna, took his family to Maiernigg. Soon after their arrival both daughters fell ill with scarlet fever and diphtheria . Anna recovered, but after a fortnight's struggle Maria died on 12 July. Immediately following this devastating loss, Mahler learned that his heart

20984-412: The meandering Danube while the city now spans both sides of the river. Elevation ranges from 151 to 542 m (495 to 1,778 ft). The city has a total area of 414.65 square kilometers (160.1 sq mi), making it the largest city in Austria by area. Vienna has a borderline oceanic ( Köppen : Cfb ) and humid continental climate ( Köppen : Dfb ), with some parts of the urban core being warm enough for

21156-655: The movements for the Fourth Symphony; from these titles the German music critic Paul Bekker conjectured a programme in which Death appears in the Scherzo "in the friendly, legendary guise of the fiddler tempting his flock to follow him out of this world." The middle period comprises a triptych of purely instrumental symphonies (the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh), the " Rückert " songs and the Kindertotenlieder , two final Wunderhorn settings and, in some reckonings, Mahler's last great affirmative statement,

21328-735: The name for former Celtic inhabitants of the area, with the name passing to the mixed population of Celts, Romans , and successive waves of German arrivals during the early medieval period. The local population eventually established the Duchy of Bavaria , forming the south-eastern part of the kingdom of Germany . The Old High German documents from the area of Bavaria are identified as Altbairisch (Old Bavarian), even though at this early date there were few distinctive features that would divide it from Alemannic German . The dialectal separation of Upper German into East Upper German (Bavarian) and West Upper German (Alemannic) became more tangible in

21500-403: The offer) to conduct the premiere there of "his" Die drei Pintos , and later also a production of Der Barbier von Bagdad by Peter Cornelius . This short stay (July to September) ended unhappily, with Mahler's dismissal following his outburst during a rehearsal. However, through the efforts of an old Viennese friend, Guido Adler , and cellist David Popper , Mahler's name went forward as

21672-475: The opera house and cleared its debts, but had won few friends—it was said that he treated his musicians in the way a lion tamer treated his animals. His departing message to the company, which he pinned to a notice board, was later torn down and scattered over the floor. After conducting the Hofoper orchestra in a farewell concert performance of his Second Symphony on 24 November, Mahler left Vienna for New York in early December. When Richter resigned as head of

21844-571: The orchestra to have Richter reinstated for the 1899 season failed, because Richter was not interested. Mahler's position was weakened when, in 1900, he took the orchestra to Paris to play at the Exposition Universelle . The Paris concerts were poorly attended and lost money—Mahler had to borrow the orchestra's fare home from the Rothschilds . In April 1901, dogged by a recurrence of ill-health and wearied by more complaints from

22016-633: The orchestra, Mahler relinquished the Philharmonic concerts conductorship. In his three seasons he had performed around 80 different works, which included pieces by relatively unknown composers such as Hermann Goetz , Wilhelm Kienzl and the Italian Lorenzo Perosi . The demands of his twin appointments in Vienna initially absorbed all Mahler's time and energy, but by 1899 he had resumed composing. The remaining Vienna years were to prove particularly fruitful. While working on some of

22188-502: The population, and 200,000 (10.4%) Muslims, 70,298 (3.7%) Orthodox, 57,502 (3.0%) other Christians, and 9,504 (0.5%) other religions. A study conducted by the Vienna Institute of Demography estimated the 2018 proportions to be 34% Catholic, 30% unaffiliated, 15% Muslim, 10% Orthodox, 4% Protestant, and 6% other religions. As of the spring of 2014, Muslims made up 30% of the total proportion of schoolchildren in Vienna. Vienna

22360-418: The post—experienced regular opposition and hostility from the anti-Semitic press. Nevertheless, his innovative productions and insistence on the highest performance standards ensured his reputation as one of the greatest of opera conductors, particularly as an interpreter of the stage works of Wagner , Mozart , and Tchaikovsky . Late in his life he was briefly director of New York's Metropolitan Opera and

22532-512: The premiere of the First Symphony, in Budapest on 20 November 1889, was a disappointment. The critic August Beer's lengthy newspaper review indicates that enthusiasm after the early movements degenerated into "audible opposition" after the Finale. Mahler was particularly distressed by the negative comments from his Vienna Conservatory contemporary, Viktor von Herzfeld , who had remarked that Mahler, like many conductors before him, had proved not to be

22704-527: The relationship with Gropius continued surreptitiously. In a gesture of love, Mahler dedicated his Eighth Symphony to her. In spite of the emotional distractions, during the summer of 1910 Mahler worked on his Tenth Symphony , completing the Adagio and drafting four more movements. He and Alma returned to New York in late October 1910, where Mahler threw himself into a busy Philharmonic season of concerts and tours. Around Christmas 1910 he began suffering from

22876-498: The remainder of the Ring cycle and other German operas were frustrated by a renascent conservative faction which favoured a more traditional "Hungarian" programme. In search of non-German operas to extend the repertory, Mahler visited in spring 1890 Italy where among the works he discovered was Mascagni's recent sensation Cavalleria rusticana (Budapest premiere on 26 December 1890). On 18 February 1889, Bernhard Mahler died; this

23048-400: The rest of his career, but his individualistic and increasingly autocratic conducting style led to friction, and a falling out with his more experienced fellow-conductor, Ludwig Slansky. During his 12 months in Prague he conducted 68 performances of 14 operas (12 titles were new in his repertory), and he also performed Beethoven 's Ninth Symphony for the first time in his life. By the end of

23220-573: The same decade, Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky inaugurated the Vienna International Centre , a new area of the city created to host international institutions. Vienna has regained much of its former international stature by hosting international organisations, such as the United Nations. Because of the industrialization and migration from other parts of the Empire, the population of Vienna increased sharply during its time as

23392-576: The season, in July 1886, Mahler left Prague to take up his post at the Neues Stadttheater in Leipzig, where rivalry with his senior colleague Arthur Nikisch began almost at once. This conflict was primarily over how the two should share conducting duties for the theatre's new production of Wagner's Ring cycle. Nikisch's illness, from February to April 1887, meant that Mahler took charge of

23564-657: The seat of the Babenbergs , who ruled Austria from 976 to 1246. In 1221, Vienna was granted city rights. During the 16th century, the Habsburgs , who had succeeded the Babenbergs, established Vienna as the seat of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire , a position it held until the empire's dissolution in 1806, with only a brief interruption. With the formation of the Austrian Empire in 1804, Vienna became

23736-472: The singers and orchestra in whom, according to music writer Peter Franklin, the conductor "inspired hatred and respect in almost equal measure". He found support, however, from Hans von Bülow , who was in Hamburg as director of the city's subscription concerts. Bülow, who had spurned Mahler's approaches in Kassel, had come to admire the younger man's conducting style, and on Bülow's death in 1894 Mahler took over

23908-682: The song cycle Kindertotenlieder ("Songs on the Death of Children"). The trilogy of orchestral symphonies, the Fifth , the Sixth and the Seventh were composed at Maiernigg between 1901 and 1905, and the Eighth Symphony written there in 1906, in eight weeks of furious activity. Within this same period Mahler's works began to be performed with increasing frequency. In April 1899 he conducted

24080-434: The song-cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and the First Symphony. Although this early evidence of cross-fertilisation is important, it is during Mahler's extended Wunderhorn phase, in which his Second, Third and Fourth Symphonies were written, that the song and symphony genres are consistently intermingled. Themes from the Wunderhorn song Das himmlische Leben ("The Heavenly Life"), composed in 1892, became

24252-408: The stepdaughter of painter Carl Moll , at a social gathering that included the theatre director Max Burckhard . Alma was not initially keen to meet Mahler, on account of "the scandals about him and every young woman who aspired to sing in opera." The two engaged in a lively disagreement about a ballet by Alexander von Zemlinsky (Alma was one of Zemlinsky's pupils), but agreed to meet at the Hofoper

24424-538: The street [in Vienna] was an event that one would proudly report to his comrades the next morning as it if were a personal triumph." During Mahler's tenure a total of 33 new operas were introduced to the Hofoper; a further 55 were new or totally revamped productions. However, a proposal to stage Richard Strauss 's controversial opera Salome in 1905 was rejected by the Viennese censors. Early in 1902 Mahler met Alfred Roller , an artist and designer associated with

24596-752: The streets. This culminated in the Kristallnacht , a nationwide pogrom against the Jews carried out by the Schutzstaffel and the Sturmabteilung , with support of the Hitler Youth and German civilians. All synagogues and prayer houses in the city were destroyed, bar the Stadttempel , due to its proximity to residential buildings. Vienna lost its status as a capital to Berlin , as Austria had ceased to exist. The few resistors in

24768-425: The strict disciplines of the Conservatory and was expelled. Mahler, while sometimes rebellious, avoided the same fate only by writing a penitent letter to Hellmesberger. He attended occasional lectures by Anton Bruckner and, though never formally his pupil, was influenced by him. On 16 December 1877, he attended the disastrous premiere of Bruckner's Third Symphony , at which the composer was shouted down, and most of

24940-399: The symphonies as explicitly as before. The three works of the brief final period— Das Lied von der Erde , the Ninth and (incomplete) Tenth Symphonies—are expressions of personal experience, as Mahler faced death. Each of the pieces ends quietly, signifying that aspiration has now given way to resignation. Cooke considers these works to be a loving (rather than a bitter) farewell to life;

25112-468: The theatre, Mahler unsuccessfully sought a post as Bülow's permanent assistant. However, in the following year his efforts to find new employment resulted in a six-year contract with the prestigious Leipzig Opera , to begin in August 1886. Unwilling to remain in Kassel for another year, Mahler resigned on 22 June 1885, and applied for, and through good fortune was offered, a standby appointment as conductor at

25284-563: The time being made of Alfred Roller's Vienna sets. On his return to Austria for the summer of 1908, Mahler established himself in the third and last of his composing studios, in the pine forests close to Toblach in Tyrol . Here, using a text by Hans Bethge based on ancient Chinese poems, he composed Das Lied von der Erde ("The Song of the Earth"). Despite the symphonic nature of the work, Mahler refused to number it, hoping thereby to escape

25456-609: The traditional four-movement symphony format. The examples of Wagner and Bruckner encouraged Mahler to extend the scale of his symphonic works well beyond the previously accepted standards, to embrace an entire world of feeling. Early critics maintained that Mahler's adoption of many different styles to suit different expressions of feeling meant that he lacked a style of his own; Cooke on the other hand asserts that Mahler "redeemed any borrowings by imprinting his [own] personality on practically every note" to produce music of "outstanding originality." The music critic Harold Schonberg sees

25628-551: The transition to the Pannonian Basin . It sits on the Danube , and is traversed by the highly regulated Wienfluss ( Vienna River ). Vienna is completely surrounded by Lower Austria , and lies around 50 km (31 mi) west of Slovakia and its capital Bratislava , 60 km (37 mi) northwest of Hungary , and 60 km (37 mi) south of Moravia ( Czech Republic ). The once Celtic settlement of Vedunia

25800-422: The triumphant premiere of his Eighth Symphony in 1910. Some of Mahler's immediate musical successors included the composers of the Second Viennese School , notably Arnold Schoenberg , Alban Berg and Anton Webern . Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten are among later 20th-century composers who admired and were influenced by Mahler. The International Gustav Mahler Society was established in 1955 to honour

25972-400: The university in 1879, Mahler made some money as a piano teacher, continued to compose, and in 1880 finished a dramatic cantata , Das klagende Lied ("The Song of Lamentation"). This, his first substantial composition, shows traces of Wagnerian and Brucknerian influences, yet includes many musical elements which musicologist Deryck Cooke describes as "pure Mahler". Its first performance

26144-401: The very northern dialects of Bavarian. The possessive pronouns Deina and Seina inflect in the same manner. Oftentimes, -nige is added to the nominative to form the adjective form of the possessive pronoun, like mei(nige), dei(nige), and the like. Just like the possessive pronouns listed above, the indefinite pronouns koana , "none", and oana , "one" are inflected the same way. There

26316-423: The viola player Natalie Bauer-Lechner . Mahler returned to Vienna in late July to prepare for Vienna's first uncut version of the Ring cycle. This performance took place on 24–27 August, attracting critical praise and public enthusiasm. Mahler's friend Hugo Wolf told Bauer-Lechner that "for the first time I have heard the Ring as I have always dreamed of hearing it while reading the score". On 8 October Mahler

26488-504: The whole cycle (except Götterdämmerung ), and scored a resounding public success. This did not, however, win him popularity with the orchestra, who resented his dictatorial manner and heavy rehearsal schedules. In Leipzig, Mahler befriended Captain Carl von Weber  [ de ] (1849–1897), grandson of the composer, and agreed to prepare a performing version of Carl Maria von Weber 's unfinished opera Die drei Pintos ("The Three Pintos"). Mahler transcribed and orchestrated

26660-401: The wrath of God." Despite poor relations with the orchestra, Mahler brought nine operas to the theatre, including Bizet 's Carmen , and won over the press that had initially been sceptical of him. After a week's trial at the Royal Theatre in the Hessian town of Kassel , Mahler became the theatre's "Musical and Choral Director" from August 1883. The title concealed the reality that Mahler

26832-414: Was Bavarian-speaking. Alternatively, there are four main dialects: Bavarian differs sufficiently from Standard German to make it difficult for native speakers to adopt standard pronunciation. Educated Bavarians and Austrians can almost always read, write and understand Standard German, but they may have very little opportunity to speak it, especially in rural areas. In those regions, Standard German

27004-443: Was almost certainly destroyed in the bombing of Dresden in 1945. On arriving in Budapest in October 1888, Mahler encountered a cultural conflict between conservative Hungarian nationalists who favoured a policy of Magyarisation , and progressives who wanted to maintain and develop the country's Austro-German cultural traditions. In the opera house a dominant conservative caucus, led by the music director Sándor Erkel, had maintained

27176-400: Was based on his own verses, although the first poem, " Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht " ("When my love becomes a bride") closely follows the text of a Wunderhorn poem. The melodies for the second and fourth songs of the cycle were incorporated into the First Symphony, which Mahler finished in 1888, at the height of his relationship with Marion von Weber. The intensity of Mahler's feelings

27348-431: Was converted by the Romans into the castrum Vindobona (province of Pannonia ) in the 1st century, and was elevated to a municipium with Roman city rights in 212. This was followed by a time in the sphere of influence of the Lombards and later the Pannonian Avars , when Slavs formed the majority of the region's population. From the 8th century on, the region was settled by the Baiuvarii . In 1155, Vienna became

27520-402: Was criticised by later biographers as incomplete, selective and self-serving, and for providing a distorted picture of Mahler's life. The composer's daughter Anna Mahler became a well-known sculptor; she died in 1988. The International Gustav Mahler Society was founded in 1955 in Vienna, with Bruno Walter as its first president and Alma Mahler as an honorary member. The Society aims to create

27692-424: Was defective, a diagnosis subsequently confirmed by a Vienna specialist, who ordered a curtailment of all forms of vigorous exercise. The extent to which Mahler's condition disabled him is unclear; Alma wrote of it as a virtual death sentence, though Mahler himself, in a letter written to her on 30 August 1907, said that he would be able to live a normal life, apart from avoiding over-fatigue. The illness was, however,

27864-424: Was delayed until 1901, when it was presented in a revised, shortened form. Mahler developed interests in German philosophy, and was introduced by his friend Siegfried Lipiner to the works of Arthur Schopenhauer , Friedrich Nietzsche , Gustav Fechner and Hermann Lotze . These thinkers continued to influence Mahler and his music long after his student days were over. Mahler's biographer Jonathan Carr says that

28036-471: Was exclusively operetta ; it was, in Carr's words "a dismal little job", which Mahler accepted only after Julius Epstein told him he would soon work his way up. In 1881, he was engaged for six months (September to April) at the Landestheater in Laibach (now Ljubljana , in Slovenia), where the small but resourceful company was prepared to attempt more ambitious works. Here, Mahler conducted his first full-scale opera, Verdi's Il trovatore , one of 10 operas and

28208-446: Was followed later in the year by the deaths both of Mahler's sister Leopoldine (27 September) and his mother (11 October). From October 1889 Mahler took charge of his four younger brothers and sisters (Alois, Otto, Justine, and Emma). They were installed in a rented flat in Vienna. Mahler himself suffered poor health, with attacks of haemorrhoids and migraine and a recurrent septic throat. Shortly after these family and health setbacks

28380-415: Was forced to resign his post with the subscription concerts after poor financial returns and an ill-received interpretation of his re-scored Beethoven's Ninth Symphony . Already at an early age Mahler had made it clear that his ultimate goal was an appointment in Vienna, and from 1895 onward was manoeuvring, with the help of influential friends, to secure the directorship of the Vienna Hofoper. He overcame

28552-520: Was formally appointed to succeed Jahn as the Hofoper's director. His first production in his new office was Smetana's Czech nationalist opera Dalibor , with a reconstituted finale that left the hero Dalibor alive. This production caused anger among the more extreme Viennese German nationalists, who accused Mahler of "fraternising with the anti-dynastic, inferior Czech nation." The Austrian author Stefan Zweig , in his memoirs The World of Yesterday (1942), described Mahler's appointment as an example of

28724-434: Was four years old, Gustav discovered his grandparents' piano and took to it immediately. He developed his performing skills sufficiently to be considered a local Wunderkind and gave his first public performance at the town theatre when he was ten years old. Although Gustav loved making music, his school reports from the Jihlava Gymnasium portrayed him as absent-minded and unreliable in academic work. In 1871, in

28896-406: Was inscribed only with his name because "any who come to look for me will know who I was and the rest don't need to know." Alma, on doctors' orders, was absent, but among the mourners at a relatively pomp-free funeral were Arnold Schoenberg (whose wreath described Mahler as "the holy Gustav Mahler"), Bruno Walter, Alfred Roller, the Secessionist painter Gustav Klimt , and representatives from many of

29068-428: Was one of the pieces that failed with critics and public, and the season ended with heavy financial losses. The highlight of Mahler's 1910 summer was the first performance of the Eighth Symphony at Munich on 12 September, the last of his works to be premiered in his lifetime. The occasion was a triumph—"easily Mahler's biggest lifetime success", according to Carr —but it was overshadowed by the composer's discovery, before

29240-492: Was present, said that "one may date [Mahler's] rise to fame as a composer from that day." That same year Mahler's private life had been disrupted by the suicide of his younger brother Otto on 6 February. At the Stadttheater Mahler's repertory consisted of 66 operas of which 36 titles were new to him. During his six years in Hamburg, he conducted 744 performances, including the debuts of Verdi's Falstaff , Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel , and works by Smetana . However, he

29412-483: Was spending on his own music, and was preparing to leave. In May 1907 he began discussions with Heinrich Conried , director of the New York Metropolitan Opera , and on 21 June signed a contract, on very favourable terms, for four seasons' conducting in New York. At the end of the summer he submitted his resignation to the Hofoper, and on 15 October 1907 conducted Fidelio , his 645th and final performance there. During his ten years in Vienna, Mahler had brought new life to

29584-479: Was subordinate to the theatre's Kapellmeister , Wilhelm Treiber, who disliked him (and vice versa) and set out to make his life miserable. Despite the unpleasant atmosphere, Mahler had moments of success at Kassel. He directed a performance of his favourite opera, Weber's Der Freischütz , and 25 other operas. On 23 June 1884, he conducted his own incidental music to Joseph Victor von Scheffel 's play Der Trompeter von Säckingen ("The Trumpeter of Säckingen"),

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