CNN's Alden Mahler Levine and CNN Homeland Security Correspondent Jeanne Meserve contributed to this report.
But the journey will transcend that obsession, in large part, because Mahler has fallen in love.
Todtenfeier is a dark beauty from the 1880s, written when Mahler was in his late 20s.
In the second movement of Mahler's Third, you can practically see him walking through those landscapes.
The orchestra moved from early Mahler to late Mahler actually the last Mahler.
Mahler capitalised: the older man's testimonials eased him into the Hamburg opera and finally Vienna.
Scored for only strings and solo harp, this is Mahler's love letter to his new bride, Alma.
Klein's "String Trio, " for example, contains quotations of pieces like Mahler's "Kindertotenlieder" ("Songs on the Death of Children").
WSJ: Will to Create, Will to Live | And the Music Played On | By Barbara Jepson
That's exactly the sensation I have when I walk onto the stage to conduct Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony.
One is Mahler's part-Nietzschean, part-Buddhist belief that we live and work through cycles of reincarnation, aiming towards purification.
Even by Mahler's day, the time lag between composition and public acceptance was growing at an alarming rate.
Drucker's final performance with the New York Philharmonic will be of Gustav Mahler's Eighth Symphony on June 27.
Also included are works by Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Mahler, Copland and Stravinsky.
And there is Duke Ellington, Gustav Mahler, Ludwig van Beethoven and Dizzy Gillespie.
Finally, What the Wildflowers Tell Me is lifted from Mahler's Symphony No. 3.
On Thursday, Stuttgart district prosecutor Siegfried Mahler revealed that the teenager was supposed to undergo treatment for depression there.
The film will feature Sir Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic performing Mahler's Symphony No 1 and Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances.
Since nothing is simple in Mahler, there are a few trademark detours along the way, leading to the sunny summit.
Mahler explores the natural world here, but he also summarizes our journey with references to where we've traveled so far.
The long-standing image of Mahler as a composer of doom has been set aside, in part through Mr Kaplan's advocacy.
There's a quote from Wagner's tragic "Tristan and Isolde" along the way, but in the end, Mahler's heartfelt desire wins out.
The third is a miniature journey unto itself, a kind of commentary by Mahler on popular culture past, present and future.
Mahler's First Symphony was filmed in Singapore's Esplanade Concert Hall in November.
Mr Kaplan is acknowledged as the leading technical authority on Mahler's second symphony, consulted by many professional maestros on matters of detail.
He planned a snooze in the box, but Mahler's conducting was electrifying.
When other twentysomethings might have been writing lighthearted music, Mahler was trying to solve the riddles of the universe through his epic symphonies.
He has more time for reading, he notes philosophically, and for music Bach, Beethoven, a new-born interest in Mahler and, occasionally, some violin practice.
"At the physical examination for the army, he provided proof of an illness that required a psychiatric treatment, " Mr Mahler told a news conference.
Only the sixth symphony tells of disaster, and as Mr Carr shows, Mahler wrote it during two of the happiest summers of his life.
Berninger's lawyer, Robert S. Mahler, said his client was happy to put the matter behind him and hoped to resume his career as a scientist.
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