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Nowadays, nobody will doubt of Mahler's importance as a composer; during his time, he met hostility and was very contested in this respect even if he had a great reputation as conductor all over the world. Unyielding regarding fidelity to musical works, today for us a matter of course, and severe against the vanities of the artists he worked with, the musicians and singers feared but respected him. Mahler made musical history by proclaiming the idea of the integral art work in the opera: In his opinion, music, acting, directing, stage set and illumination were inseparable, he conducted epoch-making performances in Vienna under the influence of Art Nouveau artists like Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) and working together with Alfred Roller (1864-1935) which were celebrated in his time already. Although he was older than most of his composing contemporaries, his music was far more in advance: He broke the traditional limits of composition and created a completely new symphonic form which on one hand met much misunderstanding (especially in Vienna where the audience loved the traditional works) but on the other hand found many enthusiastic worshippers, especially in the Netherlands and friends of him, composers like Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951) or conductors like Bruno Walter (1876-1962) und Willem Mengelberg (1871-1951). Despite the efforts of these worshippers of his music, Mahler's compositions are taken off the programmes of the concert halls after his death; the atrocious shadow of National Socialism reaches the Jew by birth and his work as much as those who speak up for his music. Only in the Sixties of the 20th century one begins to understand the magnificence of his compositions and there is not only a renaissance of his music but the genius Gustav Mahler gets finally the appreciation of conductors, critics and audience they owed him long since. On the Web there are many interesting and informative sites about Mahler's life and work to which you will find links hereafter, still I cannot design a site about the Belle Epoque without dedicating a chapter to Gustav Mahler in order to honour this musical genius and to express my love to his music.
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For me, Gustav Mahler is one of the greatest musical geniuses ever. Although he has, besides many songs,
written "only one symphony of eleven movements" (Eliahu Inbal), this enormous work is unique in
musical creation; since Mahler - although younger than e. g. Mozart - died much too young only 51
years old, his creation remained uncompleted, but still the symphonic work Mahler left to posterity
is far more rich and varied than anything composers like Mozart, Beethoven or Wagner wrote - it is a
mirror of world's history, of nature, of life itself, from the very beginning until the apocalyptic
catastrophe, in all its contradictions, its breaks, its beauty, its cruelty, its love, its grieves.
May many other music lovers and critics look at Mahler's symphonies as different, compact unities, for
me they are as well as for 
