Death of Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler died on 18 May 1911 in Vienna, aged 50. An Austrian composer and conductor born in Bohemia, Mahler was one of the leading conductors of his day, directing the Vienna Court Opera for a decade before moving to New York to lead the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic. He composed in the little time that remained, mostly during summer holidays. His output centres on ten symphonies, the last unfinished, and on song cycles with orchestra such as Kindertotenlieder and Das Lied von der Erde. His music, which ranges from folk-like melodies to vast orchestral and choral forces, as in the Eighth Symphony, was little played after his death but was rediscovered from the 1960s onward.

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