Music Reviews

Preparing for a scene in the Czech Republic town of Jihlava, where Mahler grew up

The first episode of Season 3 is Gustav Mahler: Origins, devoted to the early years of the composer’s life and music. That’s followed by Gustav Mahler: Legacy, completing the story of his musical development — from what was the final (and perhaps most sublime) expression of late 19th-century Austro-German Romanticism to the dawn of 20th-century modernism.

“Mahler said, ‘In my symphonies, I am making worlds,’ ” Thomas relates. “But what he didn’t say quite specifically was that the worlds were based very much on the world that he already knew and in which he grew up — in a small town, Iglau, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.” The documentary follows Thomas to this town, now Jihlava in the Czech Republic, and we witness the sights and, more important, the sounds that the young Mahler experienced in his formative years. (For a sampling of both, click here.)

Mahler’s summer home in Maiernigg, Austria