Originally Posted by
stlukesguild
I actually haven't come across many who would suggest that they hate Mahler. In fact, within the realm of the classical music aficionados, I would say that the late Romantic period seems to have the most fans: Mahler, Brahms, Sibelius, Bruckner, etc... Wagner attracts the most hostility due to his antisemitic comments (in spite of the fact that Chopin, among others, were far more openly antisemitic), his popularity with Hitler (as if that has anything to do with him), and the fact that as a composer he limited himself almost exclusively to opera. It is telling, for example, that Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Puccini, Britten... and even Verdi are rarely discussed by the majority among classical music fans as being among the greatest composers for the very same reason... while composers such as Handel, Vivaldi, Rimsky-Korsakov, and even Tchaikovsky are grossly underrated by those who ignore of are completely ignorant of their operatic achievements.
personally, I think Mahler is a stunning composer. His symphonic achievements are perhaps only surpassed by Beethoven and his song cycles are equally stunning. If Mahler proves difficult to some listeners, I think it has to do with:
1. His inclusion of vocals within a good many of his symphonies ("impurity"... and that dislike of the operatic) 2. The scale and the "meandering" or very large and open structure of his symphonies. We can grasp the forms of Haydn and Mozart and Schubert and Brahms far more clearly. 3. His bending of traditional tonality. Here Mahler goes beyond Wagner heading into the realm of multi-tonality and atonality/dissonance in which case we lose the firm-footing of a home base or major key to which we return again and again... and in the process we lose more of the sense of form.
