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INTRODUCTION
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) is one of the few composers whose works and legacy remain the subject of intense interest by professional musicians and also the general public, and he holds a particularly intriguing role in the culture of the twentieth century. With some commentators dubbing the audience of the latter part of that century a "generation of Mahlerians,"1 the eponymous use of the composer's name suggests that his time has indeed arrived.2 In 2010, the sesquicentennial of his birth, and 2011, the centenary of his death, the reception of Mahler points to his profound influence in symphonic music, song cycles, performing practice, and also musicological investigation. Mahler's status at the beginning of the twenty-first century bears consideration because of the ways in which it represents significant transformations in research on the composer and approaches to his works.
MAHLER'S CHANGING STATUS
During his lifetime Mahler was regarded as a modern composer,3 and some of the criticism surrounding him took issue with the innovative aspects of his scores, including the number and variety of instruments he used. A famous cartoon depicts Mahler amid a variety of percussion instruments with the caption having him lamenting the fact that he left out the automobile horn.4 As superficial as this kind of commentary may seem a century later, it indicates the effect Mahler had on his audiences through the expanded orchestra he used and the unusual instruments he included.
While Mahler had been labeled a post-romantic by some, the pejorative aspects of the term suggest a hesitation about endorsing his music along with the works of other composers whose works had more longevity in the repertoire. Yet the very elements associated with the idea of hyper-romanticism are the very ones that underscore Mahler's distinctive style and individual voice. Beyond the forces he required in his music and the expansiveness of his works, both in terms of the number of movements beyond the common-practice norm of four, and the size of the individual movements, expressiveness is an important element of Mahler's differentiated and well-articulated voice.
The intertextual and self-referential elements point to quotation and allusion which are, in turn, found in the music of other composers of the twentieth century, from Dmitri Shostakovich through John Adams. Mahler's use of musical...