“Mahler wanted to describe all of life, he wanted his music to be a universe in itself.”

Do you remember the first time you heard the music of Gustav Mahler?

Zinman: Yes I do, but I didn’t know it was Mahler at the time. It was in New York City when I was about thirteen years old, and I was taken to a rehearsal of the New York Philharmonic in New York City which Mitropoulos was conducting. And he was something which I had never heard before and didn’t know at all: I had studied the violin from the age of 6 and I played a lot of music, but I’d never heard this music before. And I thought maybe it was something Spanish, I didn’t know what it was – it was probably something from the 4th Symphony that was a little bit Spanish – and I was quite impressed by the sound of it, and I remember thinking ‘what is this?’ But I never found out. So after that I heard some Mahler on the radio, conducted by Bruno Walter, and I think it was probably the 4th, or the 1st, or the 9th Symphony, but I still didn’t know any Mahler so I just thought, yes, this is great music. Then later I went to the Oberlin Conservatory and there was a society called the Mahler Bruckner Society. I knew nothing about Bruckner and even less about Mahler, and the guys who were members of this fellowship were very weird people and so we kind of kept away from them. But this was in 1954, and there was already a Mahler Bruckner Society. And then, while I was at the Conservatory, we played Kindertotenlieder with a mezzo-soprano, and I played in the orchestra for that and it was really very important for me. I immediately got a score and I got records of the Symphonies and started listening to Mahler.

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(German only)

Österreichs Kulturministerin Dr. Claudia Schmied hat dem französischen Musikhistoriker Henry-Louis de la Grange das Österreichische Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst 1. Klasse verliehen.

“Im Jahr seines 85. Geburtstages und unmittelbar vor den Gustav Mahler Gedenkjahren 2010/2011 ist eine Anerkennung seiner Leistungen durch Österreich ein angebrachter Dank für seinen unermüdlichen Einsatz für Gustav Mahler und die Musik”.

Pressemitteilung der APA

Médiathèque Musicale Mahler

“Bruno Walter said to me: don’t be shy, play Mahler in a vulgar way.”

Do you remember the first time you heard the music of Gustav Mahler?

Mehta: That was in Bombay. It was a recording of the Symphony No. 4 conducted by Bruno Walter, and the singer was Desi Halban. As a young person, perhaps this was a good start, because the Symphony No. 4 looks at the world through the eyes of a child. I was not a child, I was a teenager, but the music was immediately accessible. Of course my father had already been to New York for four or five years and had heard, not so much Mahler, but a little of it: Mitropoulos with the New York Philharmonic; Lenny [Bernstein] had not quite started as yet. So my father’s connection with Mahler was not as great as with other classical composers. Also, my father was a man who was a great chamber musician, and there was no Mahler chamber music in that sense. So what we had was a recording of Bruno Walter, and then of course the first live performance in Vienna. In my early life, everything was in Vienna, everything [laughs]: my first opera, my first symphony, the first orchestra that I heard live was the Vienna Philharmonic, which is not bad. I didn’t hear a second-class orchestra in a province and then come to Vienna later, I didn’t have that transition. The Vienna Philharmonic was the first orchestra I heard in my life, and it is still the first orchestra in my life; this tradition, this sound, this conglomeration of chamber musicians. I have tried to imitate it in other countries where I have been a music director, but here is where I learnt it all, that’s my point.

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L.A. Phil embraces a new generation with Dudamel
Mark Swed, LA Times

Los Angeles Glows at Dudamel’s Inaugural Concert
Anthony Tommasini, New York Times

Dudamel at Walt Disney Hall
David Mermelstein, Wall Street Journal

Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel gave his inaguaral concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic yesterday, including a performance of Mahler’s 1st Symphony.

Listen to the a recording of the concert online, courtesy of NPR radio.