Austrian composer and conductor in the late ROMANTIC tradition; b. Kalischt, Bohemia, July 7, 1860;d. Vienna, May 18, 1911. Mahler attended school in Iglau, and in 1875 entered the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied piano, harmony, and composition. He also took courses in history and philosophy at the University of Vienna from 1877 to 1880.

In the summer of 1880, Mahler received his first engagement as a conductor, at the operetta theater in the town of Hall in Upper Austria. He subsequently held posts as theater conductor in various German and Austrian cities through 1885. In 1885 he served as second KAPELLMEISTER (conductor) at the Prague Opera, where he gave several performances of RICHARD WAGNER'S operas. From 1886 to 1888 he was assistant to the well-known conductor Arthur Nikisch in Leipzig, and in 1888 he received the important appointment of music director of the Royal Opera in Budapest.

In 1891 Mahler was engaged as conductor at the Hamburg Opera. During his tenure there, he developed his mature conducting technique. In 1897 he received a tentative offer as music director of the Vienna Court Opera, but there was an obstacle to overcome: Mahler was Jewish, and although there was no overt anti-Semitism in the Austrian government, an imperial appointment could not be given to a Jew. Mahler was never orthodox in his religion and had no difficulty in converting to Catholicism, Austria's prevailing faith. He held this position at the Vienna Court Opera for 10 years. Under his guidance, it reached the highest standards of artistic excellence.

In 1898 Mahler was engaged to succeed Hans Richter as conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. Here, as in his direction of opera, he proved a great interpreter, but he also allowed himself considerable freedom in rearranging the orchestration of CLASSICAL scores when he felt it was called for. He also aroused antagonism among the players by his autocratic behavior. He resigned from the Vienna Philharmonic in 1901, and in 1907 he also resigned from the Vienna Court Opera.

In the meantime, Mahler worked as a composer, confining himself exclusively to composition of symphonic music, sometimes with vocal parts. Because of his busy schedule as conductor, he could compose only in the summer months, in a villa on the Worthersee in Carinthia. In 1902 he married Alma Schindler (see ). She had studied music with Alexander von Zemlinsky, ARNOLD SCHOENBERG'S brother-in-law, but was forced to give up composition after her marriage by her autocratic husband. They had two daughters, the younger of whom, Anna, was briefly married to Ernst Krenek. The elder, Maria, died of scarlet fever in 1907. While in mourning, Mahler discovered his own heart condition, which he understood would eventually kill him.

Having exhausted his opportunities in Vienna, Mahler accepted the post of principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in N.Y. in 1907. He made his American debut there on Jan. 1, 1908, conducting Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDS. In 1909 he was appointed conductor of the N.Y. Philharmonic. His performances both at the Metropolitan and with the N.Y. Philharmonic were enormously successful with audiences and N.Y. music critics, but inevitably he had conflicts with the board of trustees of both organizations, which were mostly commanded by rich women. The N.Y. newspapers published lurid accounts of his struggle for artistic command with the two governing committees.

Mahler resigned from the Metropolitan Opera, and on Feb. 21, 1911, he conducted his last concert with the N.Y. Philharmonic. He then returned to Vienna, where he died of a heart attack brought on by a bacterial infection, at the age of 50. The newspaper editorials mourned Mahler's death, sadly noting that his N.Y. tenure had been a failure.

As to Mahler's own compositions, the New York Tribune said bluntly, "We cannot see how any of his music can long survive him." His symphonies were sharply condemned in the press as being too long, too loud, and too discordant. It was not until the second half of the 20th century that Mahler became fully recognized as the last great ROMANTIC symphonist.

Mahler's symphonies were drawn on the grandest scale, and the technical means employed for their realization were correspondingly elaborate. The sources of his inspiration were twofold: the lofty concepts of universal art, akin to those of ANTON BRUCKNER, and ultimately stemming from Wagner, and the simple folk melodies of the Austrian countryside, in pastoral moods recalling intimate episodes in LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN's symphonies.

True to his ROMANTIC nature, Mahler at first attached descriptive titles to his symphonies. The first was named the Titan (after Jean Paul; 1883-88; Budapest, Nov. 20, 1889), the second, Resurrection (1887-94; Berlin, Dec. 13, 1895), the third, Ein Sommermorgentraum (A Summer's Morning Dream; 1893-96; Krefeld, Oct. 9, 1902), and the fifth, The Giant (1901-02; Oct. 18, 1904). The great Eighth Symphony became known as the Symphony of a Thousand because it required about 1,000 instrumentalists, vocalists, and soloists for performance. However, this nickname was the inspiration of Mahler's agent, not of Mahler himself. Mahler completed two movements of his work in 1909-10, Adagio and Purgatorio, which were not performed in Vienna until Oct. 12, 1924, Fritz Schalk conducting. Later in life Mahler tried to disassociate his works from their programmatic titles. He even claimed that he never used them in the first place, contradicting evidence of the manuscripts, in which the titles appear in Mahler's own hand.

Mahler was not an innovator in his harmonic writing. Rather, he brought the ROMANTIC era to its highest achievement by virtue of the expansiveness of his emotional expression and the grand design of his musical structures.

Morbid by nature, Mahler brooded upon the inevitability of death. One of his most poignant compositions was the song cycle for voice and orchestra, Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children). He wrote it during the period 1901-04, a few years before his daughter Marias death, and he blamed himself superstitiously for this anticipation of his personal tragedy (Alma may have contributed to this feeling).

Mahler's importance to the evolution of modern music is great. The early works of Schoenberg and ALBAN BERG show the influence of Mahler's concepts. A society was formed in the U.S. in 1941 "to develop in the public an appreciation of the music of Bruckner, Mahler and other moderns." The International Gustav Mahler Society was formed in Vienna in 1955, with Bruno Walter as honorary president. On Mahler's centennial, the government of Austria issued a memorial postage stamp with Mahler's portrait.

Mahler destroyed the manuscripts of several of his early works, among them a piano quartet, which was performed in Vienna in 1878 with the composer at the piano (one movement survives), and three projected or unfinished operas. Mahler also made controversial performing editions or arrangements of symphonies by many CLASSICAL and ROMANTIC composers.