Here is the second response from the current AS Music students to the question, “Who do you consider to be the King of the Symphony? Jeremy Telford argues the case for Gustav Mahler:
When I was given the challenge to choose who I thought was the “King of the Symphony” I immediately jumped to one man, Gustav Mahler. It may have seemed slightly rash, in retrospect, to immediately say that Mahler was better than those of the likes of Haydn, who wrote over 100 of them, and Beethoven, who used the symphony to kick start the romantic era of music, but I stand by my opinion and still think that Mahler, if anyone, deserves the title of “King of the Symphony”.
Like many composers, Mahler was born into a musical family and entered the classical world through performance and studying music performance at university before switching to full time composition.
At the time Mahler composed his symphonies; classical music had reached breaking point. The old priorities in composing music, such as structure and tonality, were being replaced with new priorities such as expressing yourself through your work and writing what you want, not having to follow to structures completely by the book. Harmonies were getting more and more chromatic, the orchestra was getting bigger and the range of dynamics was getting larger. How could Mahler possibly break new ground with his symphony? He applied a completely new meaning to the word “orchestra”.
His first symphony was written for 4 flutes, with flutes 3&4 doubling piccolo, 4 oboes, with oboe 4 doubling the cor anglais, 3 clarinets in Bb, A and C, with 3rd clarinet doubling bass clarinet and Eb clarinet, 3 bassoons, with bassoon 3 doubling contrabassoon, 7 horns, 4 trumpets, with 2 offstage trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, 2 timpanists (5 drums), tam tam, cymbals, triangle, bass drum, harp and strings, typically 18 violin Is, 16 violin IIs, 14 violas, 12 cellos, and 10 double basses. This orchestra was given the nickname “Titan”, and it’s clear to see why. With this symphony, Gustav Mahler shaped the history of the symphony with Titan, but there was still more to come.
It took Mahler six years to write his next symphony, three times as long as his first. Mahler’s composition was dramatically slowed down in 1898 with when his brother committed suicide, and his sister and mother died in that same year. Mahler was also pre-occupied with illnesses of his own, suffering chronic migraines and a recurrent sceptic throat. During this time, he did not write much, but instead concentrated on his conducting, being asked to conduct many of Wagner’s works and operas. In 1895, Mahler struck back with his 2nd symphony, “The Resurrection”. The first movement was originally a funeral march written for the death of his brother, sister and his mother, showing the influence that such events in his life had on his music. This was an incredible triumph for Mahler, who was able to overcome these events and ultimately produce the landmark work it is today. This was Mahler’s favourite work.
By now, Mahler had become an accomplished composer and conductor and his following works easily found fame, with his following symphonies being able to compete with great works such as Dvorak’s 9th symphony – “From the New World”, Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony – “Pathetique” and Sibelius’ 2nd Symphony, but as Europe’s political situation got more and more tense, Mahler found himself subject to large amounts of Anti-semitic abuse and this ultimately made Mahler’s reputation as a respected conductor and composer difficult to maintain. But with so many great works having been written by him, his reputation was maintained. His passion for the symphony lasted until the days of writing his tenth, were shortly after finishing his first movement, he was diagnosed of a bacterial infection which there would be no cure for, and later that year, he died, aged 51.
Though not prolific, Mahler was one of the greatest composers of his time and is still considered to be today. But why does Mahler deserve to be titled “King of the Symphony”? Each of his symphonies was trulygroundbreaking in their own right and these inspired many composers, including Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Sibelius, Schoenberg and even John Williams. Without Mahler, the long-lasting tradition of the symphony would have never been brought into the 20th century because Mahler kept the development of the symphony going and kept on breaking new ground, for others to be inspired by. Haydn developed the early symphony and gave it its importance in classical music; Beethoven broke the rules and used it to start the romantic era but Mahler used the symphony to bring classical music into the 20th century.
Sibelius once said to him that the symphony was an enclosed world, a world that only made sense musically. But Mahler famously countered, “No! The symphony is like the world; it must embrace everything.” In my opinion, there is no other candidate more worthy than the title of “King of the Symphony” than Gustav Mahler.
