Editing Gustav Mahler (section)

===Three creative periods===
[[File:Mahler song cycle.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|alt=Three staves of printed music showing the vocal line and the piano accompaniment of the first few bars|Opening of {{lang|de|Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen}}, published 1897 in a version for voice and piano]]
Deryck Cooke and other analysts have divided Mahler's composing life into three distinct phases: a long "first period", extending from {{lang|de|Das klagende Lied}} in 1880 to the end of the {{lang|de|Wunderhorn}} phase in 1901; a "middle period" of more concentrated composition ending with Mahler's departure for New York in 1907; and a brief "late period" of elegiac works before his death in 1911.<ref>Cooke, pp. 27, 71, 103</ref>

The main works of the first period are the first four symphonies, the {{lang|de|[[Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen]]}} song cycle and various song collections in which the {{lang|de|Wunderhorn}} songs predominate.<ref name=Cooke27/> In this period songs and symphonies are closely related and the symphonic works are programmatic. Mahler initially gave the first three symphonies full descriptive programmes, all of which he later repudiated.<ref>Cooke, p. 34</ref> He devised, but did not publish, titles for each of the movements for the Fourth Symphony; from these titles the German music critic [[Paul Bekker]] conjectured a programme in which Death appears in the Scherzo "in the friendly, legendary guise of the fiddler tempting his flock to follow him out of this world."<ref>La Grange, Vol. 2, pp. 757–759</ref>

The middle period comprises a [[triptych]] of purely instrumental symphonies (the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh), the "[[Rückert-Lieder|Rückert]]" songs and the {{lang|de|Kindertotenlieder}}, two final {{lang|de|Wunderhorn}} settings and, in some reckonings, Mahler's last great affirmative statement, the choral Eighth Symphony.<ref name=Cooke71 /> Cooke believes that the Eighth stands on its own, between the middle and final periods.<ref>Cooke, p. 93</ref> Mahler had by now abandoned all explicit programmes and descriptive titles; he wanted to write "absolute" music that spoke for itself.<ref name=DLG805>La Grange, Vol. 2, p. 805</ref> Cooke refers to "a new granite-like hardness of orchestration" in the middle-period symphonies,<ref name=Cooke71 /> while the songs have lost most of their folk character, and cease to fertilise the symphonies as explicitly as before.<ref name=Mitch32>Mitchell, Vol. II, p. 32</ref>

The three works of the brief final period—{{lang|de|Das Lied von der Erde}}, the Ninth and (incomplete) Tenth Symphonies—are expressions of personal experience, as Mahler faced death.<ref name=Sadie524>Sadie, pp. 524–525</ref> Each of the pieces ends quietly, signifying that aspiration has now given way to resignation.<ref name="Schonberg, p. 143">Schonberg, p. 143</ref> Cooke considers these works to be a loving (rather than a bitter) farewell to life;<ref>Cooke, p. 103</ref> the composer [[Alban Berg]] called the Ninth "the most marvellous thing that Mahler ever wrote".<ref name=Sadie524 /> None of these final works were performed in Mahler's lifetime.<ref>Blaukopf, p. 240</ref>