Drawing on both Beethoven and Wagner for inspiration, Gustav Mahler wrote symphonies that are huge in every way: long, dense, complicated and ferociously romantic. His Eighth Symphony requires a larger than normal orchestra, a separate brass band and two choirs to perform. It has been nicknamed the “Symphony of a Thousand” because it uses so many people.

 

During his lifetime, Mahler was mostly known as a conductor - especially as the leader of the Vienna Opera. After his death his fame as a composer spread, largely due to the work of other conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer.

 

Mahler was very superstitious, and he had a lifelong fear that because Beethoven, Schubert and others had died after writing nine symphonies - the ninth symphony was “deadly”. After he had written eight symphonies, he added voices to the next large orchestra piece he wrote and called it Das Lied von der Erde (“The Song of the Earth”), to avoid calling it his ninth symphony. Mahler finally did write a Ninth Symphony in 1910, and sure enough he died less than one year later.