Mahler’s Youth and a Brief Analysis of his Second Symphony

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The main focus of this paper is going to be about Mahler’s youth and also his second symphony ‘Resurrection’. Since there is little information regarding his youth in Vienna (1875-1880)it is necessary to do a situational analysis of Mahler’s context, in which I will try to establish a connection between the socio-political context and the young Mahler, based on situational logic. It is also necessary to recall Mahler’s childhood years to understand the whole effect of his work. Therefore, this paper will be divided into a) a brief recount of his childhood, b) a situational analysis of the socio-political factors of Vienna in 1875-1880, and c) a brief analysis of his 2nd Symphony.. Gustav Mahler was born on July 7, 1860 in Kalischt, on the Bohemian-Moravian border, however he moved to Iglau in December of the same year. He would spend his infancy and adolescence there until 1871 when he left for Prague to continue his studies. For the purpose of the study of his work, it is critical to have in account the deep influence of his years in Iglau, or in other words, his early youth. Mahler himself would say on a interview in the last year of his life: As the child is, so will the man be… So it is in music that the songs which a child assimilates in his youth will determine the musical manhood…the musical influence upon his afterlife and also that the melodies which composers evolve in their maturity are but the flowers which bloom from the fields which were sown with the seed of the folk-song in their childhood. (Barham, 9). Mahler, whose parents didn’t play any musical instrument and who had virtually no musical heritage, understood later that the absorption of cultural material early in life was essential for his development as ... ... middle of paper ... ...onour of Henry-Louis De La Grange on His Seventieth Birthday. Berne: P. Lang, 1997. Print. Mosley, David L. "The Material Thinking of Caspar David Friedrich and Gustav Mahler."Interdisciplinary Humanities 27.1 (2010): 99-111. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 28 Jan. 2011 Rosenzweig, Alfred, and Jeremy Barham. Gustav Mahler: New Insights into His Life, times and Work. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007. Print. Revers, Peter. "Song and Song Symphony (I). Des Knaben Wunderhorn and the Second, Third and Fourth Symphonies: Music of Heaven and Earth." Cambridge Companion to Mahler. By Jeremy Barham. New York: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print. Solvik, Morten. "The Literary and Philosophical Worlds of Gustav Mahler." Cambridge Companion to Mahler. By Jeremy Barham. New York: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print.to Mahler. By Jeremy Barham. New York: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print.

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