Editing Gustav Mahler (section)

===Reception===

====Early responses, 1889–1911====
[[File:Mahlercartoon 1907.jpg|thumb|upright|alt= Caricature of Mahler surrounded by comical musical instruments, including a motor horn which he is operating by the use of his feet|A satirical comment on Mahler's [[Symphony No. 6 (Mahler)|Sixth Symphony]]. The caption translates: "My God, I've forgotten the motor horn! Now I shall have to write another symphony."]]

Mahler's friend Guido Adler calculated that at the time of the composer's death in 1911 there had been more than 260&nbsp;performances of the symphonies in Europe, Russia and America, the Fourth Symphony with 61&nbsp;performances given most frequently (Adler did not enumerate performances of the songs).<ref name=Carr221 /> In his lifetime, Mahler's works and their performances attracted wide interest, but rarely unqualified approval; for years after its 1889 premiere critics and public struggled to understand the First Symphony, described by one critic after an 1898 Dresden performance as "the dullest [symphonic] work the new epoch has produced".<ref>La Grange, Vol. 2, pp. 99, 140</ref> The Second Symphony was received more positively, one critic calling it "the most masterly work of its kind since Mendelssohn".<ref>La Grange, Vol. 2, pp. 141–142</ref> Such generous praise was rare, particularly after Mahler's accession to the Vienna Hofoper directorship. His many enemies in the city used the anti-Semitic and conservative press to denigrate almost every performance of a Mahler work;<ref>La Grange: Vol. 2, pp. 148–155, 307–309</ref> thus the Third Symphony, a success in Krefeld in 1902, was treated in Vienna with critical scorn: "Anyone who has committed such a deed deserves a couple of years in prison."<ref>La Grange Vol. 3, pp. 68–69</ref>

A mix of enthusiasm, consternation and critical contempt became the normal response to new Mahler symphonies, although the songs were better received.<ref>La Grange, Vol. 3, pp. 107–108</ref> After his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies failed to gain general public approval, Mahler was convinced that his Sixth would finally succeed.<ref>La Grange, Vol. 3, p. 405</ref> However, its reception was dominated by satirical comments on Mahler's unconventional percussion effects—the use of a wooden mallet, birch rods and a huge square bass drum.<ref>La Grange, Vol. 3, pp. 412–413</ref> Viennese critic [[Heinrich Reinhardt (composer)|Heinrich Reinhardt]] dismissed the symphony as "Brass, lots of brass, incredibly much brass! Even more brass, nothing but brass!"<ref>La Grange, Vol 3 p. 536</ref> The one unalloyed performance triumph within Mahler's lifetime was the premiere of the Eighth Symphony in Munich, on 12 September 1910, advertised by its promoters as the "Symphony of a Thousand".{{refn|The title "Symphony of a Thousand" was not acknowledged by Mahler. Jonathan Carr indicates that, at its Munich premiere, there were fewer than 1000 performers present.<ref name=Carr207 /> At the American premiere under Leopold Stokowski in 1916, however, there were 1,068 performers, including 950 choristers.<ref name=AS91 />|group=n}} At its conclusion, applause and celebrations reportedly lasted for half an hour.<ref name=Carr207 />

====Relative neglect, 1911–1950====
Performances of Mahler's works became less frequent after his death. In the Netherlands the advocacy of Willem Mengelberg ensured that Mahler remained popular there, and Mengelberg's engagement with the New York Philharmonic from 1922 to 1928 brought Mahler regularly to American audiences.<ref name=Carr221>Carr, pp. 221–224</ref> However, much American critical reaction in the 1920s was negative, despite a spirited effort by the young composer [[Aaron Copland]] to present Mahler as a progressive, 30&nbsp;years ahead of his time and infinitely more inventive than Richard Strauss.<ref name=Copland149>Copland, pp. 149–50</ref> Earlier, in 1916, [[Leopold Stokowski]] had given the American premieres of the Eighth Symphony and {{lang|de|Das Lied von der Erde}} in [[Philadelphia]]. The Eighth was a sensationally successful performance that was immediately taken to New York where it scored a further triumph.<ref name=AS91>Ander Smith, p. 91</ref>

An early proponent of Mahler's work in Britain was [[Adrian Boult]], who as conductor of the [[City of Birmingham Orchestra]] performed the Fourth Symphony in 1926 and {{lang|de|Das Lied von der Erde}} in 1930.<ref>Mitchell (''The Mahler Companion''), p. 557</ref> The [[Hallé Orchestra]] brought {{lang|de|Das Lied}} and the Ninth Symphony to [[Manchester]] in 1931; Sir [[Henry Wood]] staged the Eighth in London in 1930, and again in 1938 when the young [[Benjamin Britten]] found the performance "execrable" but was nevertheless impressed by the music.<ref>Kennedy</ref> British critics during this period largely treated Mahler with condescension and faint praise. Thus [[Dyneley Hussey]], writing in 1934, thought the "children's songs" were delightful, but that the symphonies should be let go.<ref>Hussey, pp. 455–456</ref> Composer-conductor [[Julius Harrison]] described Mahler's symphonies as "interesting at times, but laboriously put together" and as lacking creative spark.<ref>Harrison, p. 237</ref> [[George Bernard Shaw|Bernard Shaw]] reported that the younger generation of the 1930s found Mahler (and Bruckner) "expensively second-class".<ref>Shaw, p. 753</ref>

Before Mahler's music was banned as "[[degenerate music|degenerate]]" during the [[Nazi Germany|Nazi era]], the symphonies and songs were played in the concert halls of Germany and Austria, often conducted by [[Bruno Walter]] or Mahler's younger assistant [[Otto Klemperer]],<ref name=Carr221 /> and also by [[Willem Mengelberg]]. In Austria, Mahler's work experienced a brief renaissance between 1934 and 1938, a period known today as '[[Austrofascism]]', when the authoritarian regime with the help of Alma Mahler and Bruno Walter, who were both on friendly terms with the new chancellor [[Kurt Schuschnigg]], sought to make Mahler into a national icon (with a status comparable to that of Wagner in Germany).<ref>Niekerk pp. 216–217, 271</ref> Mahler's music was performed during the Nazi era in Berlin in early 1941 and in Amsterdam during the German occupation of the Netherlands by Jewish orchestras and for Jewish audiences alone; works performed included the Second Symphony (Berlin), the First and Fourth Symphonies, and the ''Songs of a Wayfarer'' (Amsterdam).<ref>Niekerk pp. 216, 271</ref>

====Modern revival====
According to American composer [[David Schiff]], his compatriot [[Leonard Bernstein]] used to imply that he had single-handedly rescued Mahler from oblivion in 1960, after 50&nbsp;years of neglect. Schiff points out that such neglect was only relative—far less than the (incomplete) disregard of [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]] in the years after his death. Although Bernstein gave the Mahler revival further impetus, it was well under way before 1960, sustained by conductors such as Stokowski, [[Dimitri Mitropoulos]] and [[John Barbirolli]], and by the long-time Mahler advocate Aaron Copland.<ref>Schiff</ref> Mahler himself predicted his place in history, once commenting: "Would that I could perform my symphonies for the first time 50 years after my death!"<ref>{{cite book|last1=Fischer|first1=Jens Malte|title=Gustav Mahler|date=April 2013|publisher=Yale UP|page=692|edition=1st English|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rnBj5mrK7moC&pg=PA680|isbn=978-0-300-13444-5|access-date=18 November 2017|archive-date=15 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230415173532/https://books.google.com/books?id=rnBj5mrK7moC&pg=PA680|url-status=live}}</ref>

Deryck Cooke argues that Mahler's popularity escalated when a new, postwar generation of music lovers arose, untainted by "the dated polemics of anti-romanticism" which had affected Mahler's reputation in the inter-war years. In this more-liberated age, enthusiasm for Mahler expanded even into places—Spain, France, Italy—which had long been resistant to him.<ref>Cooke, pp. 3–4</ref> Jonathan Carr's simpler explanation for the 1950s Mahler revival is that "it was the [[LP record|long-playing record]] [in the early 1950s] rather than the {{lang|de|Zeitgeist}} which made a comprehensive breakthrough possible. Mahler's work became accessible and repeatable in the home."<ref name=Carr221 /> In the years following his centenary in 1960, Mahler rapidly became one of the most performed and most recorded of all composers, and has largely remained thus. In Britain and elsewhere, Carr notes, the extent of Mahler performances and recordings has replaced a relative famine with a glut, bringing problems of over-familiarity.<ref name=Carr221 /> Harold Schonberg comments that "it is hard to think of a composer who arouses equal loyalty", adding that "a response of anything short of rapture to the Mahler symphonies will bring [to the critic] long letters of furious denunciation."<ref>Schonberg, p. 137</ref>

In a letter to Alma dated 16 February 1902, Mahler wrote, with reference to Richard Strauss: "My day will come when his is ended. If only I might live to see it, with you at my side!"<ref>A. Mahler, pp. 220–221</ref> Carr observes that Mahler could conceivably have lived to see "his day"; his near-contemporary Richard Strauss survived until 1949, while Sibelius, just five years younger than Mahler, lived until 1957.<ref>Steen. p. 742</ref>