I have had an impression that Schubert and Mahler have had a similarity beyond belonging to the romantic school in the beginning and in the last, respectively.
One point is that both have started from the lied. Schubert has intensified it into the lied in original style of a pianist and a vocal solo. It has converged to his last work, Winterreise. It was a main theme how to save himself with music from fear of death for Mahler throughout his life. Both of them have taken the style of funeral march in their works, such as the 1st movement of the 5th symphony or the last song of Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen for Mahler. His 2nd or 9th symphony is dealing with the death itself. Schubert has written also funeral march in the 2nd movement of the string quartet, Tod und Maiden, or of the 2nd piano trio. Winterreise itself is doing with a trip to death.
Schubert was indulged in the intimate world of lied from the beginning to the end while Mahler has extended his music to the limit with a large scaled orchestra. But their works seem to have the essence told above in common.
I was pleased to find a clip by LA Philharmonic commenting almost the same idea as mine. I won't care for if anyone has the same idea or not. But knowing that someone thinks in the same way as for those two famous composers, I am a bit relieved as well as pleased at that.
The clip is here;
Honestly, Mahler is so attractive that I could be intoxicated when going on listening to his works. Nowadays, I am more inclined to the works of Schubert, his impromptu, string quartets or piano trios etc.
I sometimes wonder if the relief from fear of death was a driving force for those geniuses to go on composing. Even pleasant opera could be an excellent divertissement from that fear. From this standpoint, I believe we could appreciate any music even deeper.
It was the 3rd anniversary of Prof. Isoyama's passing yesterday.
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