Gustav Mahler’s life swung between opposites: composer and conductor, Jew and Catholic, nature-lover and urbanite. One dichotomy characterized his entire composing career: symphony and song.
Song came first. Born to a large, lower-class family in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) on July 7, 1860, Mahler wasn’t the child prodigy typical of classical music mythology. Neither a virtuoso pianist nor a composing wunderkind, Mahler tried his composing hand at age 16 with a rather perfunctory Piano Quartet that’s rarely played today. Chamber music wasn’t his strength.
