Gustav Mahler grew up above his father's inn in Jihlava, surrounded by drinking songs, street dances, military trumpet calls, and funerals: his parents had fourteen children and only six survived infancy. This episode explores how that collision of sounds shaped a composer who dropped tavern tunes and funeral marches into the symphony, including the minor-key Frere Jacques played by solo double bass in his First. We follow his climb through provincial theaters as a dictatorial conductor, his Tchaikovsky endorsement, and his summers composing in alpine huts on Des Knaben Wunderhorn texts.

We examine his 1897 conversion to Catholicism to secure the Vienna Court Opera post in an openly anti-Semitic city, his 33 new productions with designer Alfred Roller, and the ultimatum that forced Alma Schindler to abandon composing. We cover the three blo ...