Toward the end of his life, from 1908 to 1909, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) composed Das Lied von der Erde (The song of the earth). This piece is a cycle of six song movements based on seven poems selected from Die chinesische Flötem - Nachdichtungen chinesischer Lyrik (The Chinese flute - free adaptation of Chinese lyric poetry) by Hans Bethge. The Chinese verse was written by Li-Po (numbers 1, 3, 4 and 5), Tchang-Tsi (number 2), and Mong-Kao-Jen and Wang-Wei (combined in number 6). Subsequently, in 1921, Arnold Schoenberg reduced the work to a simple chamber version transcription from Mahler's original massive score for full orchestra, a version completed in 1983 by Rainer Riehn. While the main melodic material in the vocal parts was maintained, the orchestral parts underwent substantial changes. This dissertation explores Mahler's reconfiguration of textual material and the setting of these texts in the orchestral medium. After consulting the various textual editions, I establish misreading and translational differences from the original Chinese through its various Western European incarnations; how and why Mahler chose the Bethge edition; what influenced his specific selection of poetry; and how these poems inform one another and the work as a whole. I also explore the crucial role of instrumentation and orchestration in text setting, and how his instrumentation of these translated "exotic" texts stands in dialogue with the nineteenth-century tradition and emergent frames of nationality. This dissertation also focuses on Schoenberg's instrumentation, arrangement, and orchestration as re-conceptualized and restructured from Mahler's original six movements. While the dissertation synthesizes the views of various scholars, many original observations will be offered, as few articles substantively consider this transcription of one of the most revered and reviled composers of the late-nineteenth century by one of the most revered and reviled composers of the twentieth-century. The transcript version from Schoenberg and Riehn succeeds in that it not only maintains the original vocal melody and Chinese text, but also presents the key musical concepts and visions from Mahler's original fully orchestrated version with limited chamber instrumentation, economical re-composition, and a minimum of means.

Conductors are oftern associated with a specific body of work in their repertoy. Gustav Mahler's conducting repertory contained some major Wagnerian works, including Tristan und Isolde. Mahler's first performance of Tristan took place during his tenure at the Stadttheater in Hamburg (1891-1897). It remained an integral part of his repertory through his tenure at the Vienna Hofoper (1897-1907), and was one of eight works he conducted at New York's Metropolitan Opera (1907-1910). This study includes a brief history of Mahler's education and a description of his conducting style characteristics. It traces the reception of Mahler's production of Tristan from Hamburg to New York, and focuses on his performances at the Hofoper and at the Metropolitan Opera. Sources used to determine performance changes he made include letters, personal reminiscences of friends and critics, and newspaper and journal reviews.

The 1920 Amsterdam Mahler Festival (the Mahler-Feest) was cast simultaneously as a celebration of Gustav Mahler’s life and works around a decade after his death, a jubilee honoring Willem Mengelberg on his twenty-fifth anniversary as director of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and a grandiose return to public concert life following the First World War. In this dissertation, I argue that the festival’s organizing committee had yet another lofty goal: to turn this musical event into an unofficial diplomatic gathering, bringing artistic representatives together from across the Western world under the shared belief that the festival—and specifically the music of Gustav Mahler—would pave the way toward a more unified Europe after the turbulent years of the 1910s. Throughout this project, I analyze various elements of the Mahler-Feest through both musicological and political-historical frameworks, showing that every aspect of the festival was carefully designed to convey a spirit of internationalism and universality to those in attendance. Among these elements were the assembly of prominent guests from around the Western world, the performance of chamber music written by composers from various nations alongside the central program of Mahler’s works, the signing of a Manifesto of Foreign Guests promoting similarly politicized festivals in the future, and the establishment of a global Mahler Union that was to be headquartered in Amsterdam. I further demonstrate that the internationalistic aspects of the event also promoted an underlying nationalistic ideology, with the festival serving to support the diplomatic goals of the Dutch state, which sought to posit itself as a neutral site for dialogue and mediation among nations during the early decades of the twentieth century. Among the central figures in this dissertation is Rudolf Mengelberg—the Concertgebouw’s program annotator and a distant cousin of Willem—who, through his expansive program book written for the festival, casts Mahler as the composer whose music best matched the political framing of the event. To further analyze the Mahler-Feest, I compare this Mengelberg’s characterizations of Mahler with the viewpoints and beliefs that the composer expressed during his own lifetime, showing that Mengelberg took advantage of historical ambiguities to promote his politicized interpretations of Mahler without directly contradicting the documentary evidence available at the time. At the end of the dissertation, I assess the impact that the perspectives advanced at the festival have had (and continue to have) on the broader realm of Mahler scholarship across the past century, and I briefly examine the evolution of the Mahler-centric festival from 1920 through the present day. Methodologically, this study uses archival evidence to bring together lines of inquiry spanning the fields of musicology, political history, anthropology, and the emerging discipline of festival studies.

Noted for both vocal and symphonic output, Gustav Mahler's musical sophistication constantly puzzled scholars in the past decades. In his symphonic works, the mixed forms and styles in combination with the vocal influence make it abstruse for listeners to detect the meaning of the use of traditional instruments. The solo violin, which has an extensive history of appearing in symphonic compositions since the Baroque era, is an instance of a traditional instrument given an unusual function. For instance, Mahler's violin solos do not tend to showcase the virtuosity of the instrument as they normally do in orchestral music. In order to closely examine the role of the solo violin, I rely on aspects relating to introversive semiosis such as harmonies, rhythms, textures, phrase structures, and forms; then my focus shifts to extroversive semiosis, specifically to topics and contextual factors. By considering the violin as a musical sign, listeners can comprehend the instrument's structure, syntax, and ultimately the complex logic of Mahler's musical discourse.

Gustav Mahler's Seventh Symphony seems to belie traditional notions of symphonic unity in that it progresses from E minor in the first movement to C major in the Finale. The repertoire of eighteenth and nineteenth century composers such as Haydn, Beethoven, and Brahms indicates that tonal holism is a significant factor for the symphonic genre. In order to reconcile Mahler's adventurous key scheme, this dissertation explores a multidimensional harmonic model that expands upon other concepts like Robert Bailey's double-tonic complex and transformation theory. A multidimensional musical object is a nexus of several interconnected chords that occupy the same functional space (tonic, dominant, or subdominant) and can be integrated into a Schenkerian reading. Mahler's Seventh is governed by a three-dimensional tonic object that encompasses the major and minor versions of C, E, and A-flat and the augmented triad that is formed between them. The nature of this multidimensional harmony allows unusual formal procedures to unfold, most notably in the first movement's sonata form. To navigate this particular sonata design, I have incorporated my own analytical terminology, the identity narrative, to track the background harmonic events. The location of these events (identity schism, identity crisis, and identity reclamation) is critical to the entire structure of the Seventh.