Any thorough understanding of Gustav Mahler and his music must probe the complexities of his thoughts about life and existence. Mahler's pursuit of these fundamental questions went far beyond idle speculation, haunting his personal reflections and informing his artistic project with a nearly obsessive quality. In significant ways, Mahler's works represent a response to this existential inquiry, an extension of an overriding need to somehow fathom the universe.

The composer as thinker

The intensity of Mahler's intellectual interests struck virtually everyone who knew him. The recollections of such friends and acquaintances as Natalie Bauer-Lechner, Richard Horn, Anna von Mildenburg and Richard Kralik all make noteworthy references to Mahler's effusive tone in conversations about life and art. Bruno Walter, for a time Mahler's assistant and one of the most philosophically inclined of his conversation partners, referred to his private time with Mahler in Hamburg as mainly preoccupied with ‘confessions of the soul, philosophy, and music’. Mahler's uncanny ability to grasp new concepts and develop intriguing perspectives impressed them all. As Walter also pointed out: ‘Friends of his, professionally occupied with natural science, were hard pressed by his deeply penetrating questions. An eminent physicist whom he met frequently could not tell me enough about Mahler's intuitive understanding of the ultimate theories of physics and about the logical keenness of his conclusions and counter-arguments.’