Mahler was, I think, the first great composer of the twentieth century. Born in 1880, died in 1911, he sort of goosed classical music. In 1895, in his third symphony, he loosened up his key structure.
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He only conducted that piece himself a few times, once was enough. That was the opening salvo. Sad thing is, nobody even knew what happened.
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Something about the way the third was constructed created a rift - an opening - of some kind in the astral plane. He wanted to fill that space that isn't quite there unless you can see it in madness. I know that he was a real man.
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Between 1901 and 1904, Mahler composed the song cycle "Kindertotenlieder". Dutch and German people might now what this means. It means "songs on the death of children."
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In 1907, Mahler lost his 5-year-old daughter Maria to scarlet fever. In February, 1911, Mahler contracted a streptococcal blood infection. He died that May.
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San Francisco, April 1906, five years before Mahler's death, an out-of-town orchestra had been practicing Mahler's third all night for a performance the next day. They finished according to the conductor's notes, at 5:10 AM.
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At 5:12 AM on April 18, the San Francisco earthquake struck. At least 3,000 people died and the city was basically wiped out by the quake and the subsequent fires.
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