Gustav Mahler: Conducting Multiculturalism

  • Victoria Hallinan Northeastern University
Keywords: Music history, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Multiculturalism, Gustav Mahler

Abstract

Musicologists and historians have generally paid much more attention to Gustav Mahler’s famous career as a composer than to his work as a conductor. His choices in concert repertoire and style, however, reveal much about his personal experiences in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his interactions with contemporary cultural and political upheavals. This project examines Mahler’s conducting career in the multicultural climate of late nineteenth-century Vienna and New York. It investigates the degree to which these contexts influenced the conductor’s repertoire and questions whether Mahler can be viewed as an early proponent of multiculturalism.

Author Biography

Victoria Hallinan, Northeastern University
PhD Candidate in World History
Published
2013-01-03
Section
Articles