Farewell
Farewell
Mahler’s last years were a struggle. His career in New York fell short of his expectations, the death of his elder daughter continued to cast a shadow on his emotions, and he endured intense shock at the discovery of Alma’s infidelity. During his summer sojourns in the Austrian countryside, he wrote his most profound music — music in which he found himself turning back to earlier expressive devices.
Time & Place: Mahler's Life between Worlds
Explore the last years of Mahler's life as he traveled back and forth between the Old World and the New. See where he experienced some of his most spectacular triumphs and his deepest disappointments.
Explore MapWatch Video
Play
MTT on the significance of Mahler’s last years.
Common Threads
“Impressions of his youth run like a scarlet thread throughout his work.”
—Mahler's friend, musicologist Guido Adler
On this website you can follow the way Mahler’s childhood memories — sounds of the countryside, the parade ground, the church, the tavern, and the synagogue — create common threads that run through all of his songs and symphonies.
“Now at the end of life I am again a beginner who must find his feet.”