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When Gustav Mahler was six years old, he discovered a piano in his grandmother's attic. He had his first public performance four years later.1)
The Mahlers emigrated from eastern Bohemia and settled in the German town of Kalit.2)
In 1878, Mahler graduated from the Vienna Conservatory. Unfortunately, few of his student compositions have survived, so it's uncertain what he would have sounded like at the time.3)
Following his employment at the Leipzig Opera, Mahler relocated to Prague in 1885 to assume a position at the Neues Deutsches Theater (New German Theater).4)
In 1897, Mahler was appointed director of the Vienna Court Opera, a position he would maintain for the next ten years. It was a trying moment for Mahler, who had to show his German cultural credentials on several occasions to placate his employers. He accomplished this by conducting some thunderous Wagner concerts.5)
At the turn of the century, Mahler moved to the United States to become the director of New York's Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic.6)
Mahler gave his final concert at New York's Carnegie Hall on February 21, 1911. He became extremely ill as a result of the incident and was confined to his bed. He returned to Vienna, where he died on May 18, 1911.7)
Following the devastation of World War I, some judged Mahler's emotionally charged soundscapes to be out of sync with the broader tone of the moment. Leonard Bernstein, a huge devotee, would frequently claim that he rekindled his passion in the composer beginning in 1960.8)