Counterpoint Music Library - Composer Information
Mahler had just arrived in Vienna to direct the Hofoper in 1897 after a number of directoral and conducting posts throught Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire, when he began an association with Josef Weinberger, who published a number of his early works before ceding all but one (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen) to the Universal Edition, which Weinberger himself had helped to found. Mahler’s term of duty at the Hofoper was marked by constant friction and scandals (a regular characteristic of Vienna’s musical life to this day), but was distinguished by exceptionally fine performances. It was some decades before Mahler’s music came to enjoy the worldwide recognition now accorded to it - indeed, the Oxford Companion to Music, as late as the 1955 edition, remarks patronisibgly that "his symphonies have been taken seriously in Germany and Holland". Weinberger renewed its valued association with Mahler in the 1980s by publishing his arrangements for string orcestra of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet and Beethoven’s Op. 95 quartet, discovered by the renowned Mahler scholar and biographer Donald Mitchell. Since their rediscovery, both works have been recorded and performed extensively around the world. Further information can be found at the composer's website: Click here |
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