# Mahler’s song cycle influences



## OWATT01 (Oct 17, 2020)

Hey, would anyone know Gustav Mahler influences for his song cycles or composers who wrote similarly that compose operatic works or lieder. I expect to see Schubert Brahms and Wagner... are there anymore or even composers following Mahler that he influenced that write closely like him??

Thanks


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I guess that for such a study, one would look into orchestral songs by for example Alexander Zemlinsky, Otakar Ostrcil, Egon Wellesz, Erwin Schulhoff, Paul von Klenau and Alphons Diepenbrock.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Berlioz's song cycle _Les nuits d'été_ is the thing that immediately comes to mind as a possible influence. Ravel's _Shéhérazade_ came after but also might be what your looking for. For a larger body of work, Richard Strauß's orchestral song cycles are somewhat similar. Ultimately, if you want operatic songs, you might be better off listening to opera arias.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

MFiles says of his influences: "Mahler's contemporaries included Richard Strauss, with whom he is sometimes linked as a late romantic, the tragic song writer Hugo Wolf, and Hans Rott. Johannes Brahms was a friend and advisor to Mahler, although musically they shared little beyond the romantic expression within classical forms."

Mahler was differentiated from these composers by his early form of expressionism and expansion of traditional forms. Even his early song cycles such as Das Klagende Lied show expansion from the likes of Wolf and Schubert.


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## MrMeatScience (Feb 15, 2015)

Mahler was friends with Wolf (both were members of the Pernerstorfer circle in the second half of the 1870s) up until they had a falling out over Mahler's refusal to stage Wolf's opera, so there's a very clear connection there.


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## Axter (Jan 15, 2020)

Bruckner had apparently some good deal of influence on Mahler, whose work Mahler also conducted.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Leonard Bernstein said of one of Mahler's songs: "It's German milk-maid music." Bernstein also theorized that on a deeper level, there was a Jewish influence in Mahler's music. So, maybe, in addition to Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, Bruckner, Wolf, etc. Mahler drew from German and Jewish folk music.


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