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Lead book review

Gustav Mahler’s bid for greatness: the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’

Gustav Mahler was a passionate enthusiast for the colossal in music. Even so, his mighty eighth symphony stands apart, says Philip Hensher

21 March 2020

9:00 AM

21 March 2020

9:00 AM

The Eighth: Mahler and the World in 1910 Stephen Johnson

Faber, pp.314, 18.99

A kind of gigantism took hold of the European mind in the years before the first world war. It shaped everything, from empires to poetry. In the confidence of new technology and new ideas, things could be attempted on a larger scale than ever before. The mental power of the age could be measured in the sheer size of the things it produced.

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