7 July: Gustav Mahler

The composer Gustav Mahler was born on this date in 1860. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. His paternal grandmother was a street peddler. Her son Bernhard moved up in the world by getting a job as a coachman and later became an innkeeper.
2. Mahler’s musical career began when he found a Piano in his grandmother’s attic when he was four. At ten, he gave his first public performance.
3. He was one of 15 children, but 8 of his siblings died young. Hence he wrote a song cycle on the death of children called Kindertotenlieder. One of his own children died, too.
4. He met his wife Alma Schindler at a social gathering. She wasn’t keen on meeting him at first, as he had a reputation for affairs with aspiring opera singers. When they first met, they argued about a ballet, but nonetheless Alma agreed to a date the next day. Four months later, they were married. Alma was a budding composer herself but Mahler insisted she give it up, because he believed there should only be one composer in the family. Alma resented this. She wrote in her diary: "How hard it is to be so mercilessly deprived of... things closest to one's heart."
5. He liked to compose in the early morning and spend the rest of the day outdoors, swimming, running and cycling. He had a summer cottage in the mountains and found the Alpine scenery inspiring. He once told someone who came to visit him there, “Don’t bother looking at the view, I have already composed it.” Hence he was devastated when he was diagnosed with a defective Heart and told by his doctors to cease all vigorous exercise.
6. The tragedies in his life prompted him to have a therapy session with Sigmund Freud. Freud’s diagnosis was that Mahler was fixated with his mother.
7. Mahler’s first symphony is considered by some to be the greatest 1st Symphony of any composer. It includes a funeral march based on the children’s song Frère Jacques.
8. At 95 minutes long, Mahler’s 3rd Symphony is the longest symphony of the orchestral repertoire.
9. His eighth symphony featured an orchestra of 150 and a choir more than 800 voices strong. This led to this symphony being nicknamed the "Symphony of a Thousand". Mahler hated the name, but it stuck.
10. There ‘s a superstition among composers stating that many of them die after writing their ninth symphony. For that reason, Mahler’s ninth symphony was given a name rather a number: Das Lied von der Erde. He went on to write a ninth symphony after that, and died while writing his tenth.

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