Big bang theory: discovering Mahler

How did Mahler go from being a byword for excess to the composer every orchestra wants to perform? On the 150th anniversary of his birth, Tom Service explores the passions that powered his musicI didn't like Mahler when I first heard his music. Actually, that's an understatement. I remember staring up at the American conductor Neeme Järvi from my seat in Glasgow's City Halls, and in an exquisite torture of boredom and frustration, offering up a 12-year-old's prayer to make him and the Scotti...

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