Synopsis

What is love?  Can it truly conquer all?  Or is life’s meaning to be discovered elsewhere?

Gustav Mahler’s passionate and dangerous affair with the beautiful wife of an army captain sparked his confidence to envision a work beyond the tradition he inherited: a symphony that would engage the great mysteries of love, death and life’s purpose.  It would lift its audience through intense struggle to a heightened state of being. One hundred and thirty years later his Symphony No. 1 is recognized as one of the most original and daring symphonies ever.  It is performed throughout the world to standing ovations.

Unknown to most listeners, however, is the music’s hidden story.  It is about the coming of age of a musical genius.  Yet the composition of the symphony was itself the working out of that very process: the compact with nature, the adventures in romance, the self-doubt and despair of making sense of the world, and the triumph of the spirit.  It’s all here!  The inner life of a questioning young man comes into vivid expression through music.

Mahler’s Titan: The Romance, Death and Triumph of a Young Musician, a documentary film, explores the intimacy and immensity of this achievement.  Using a game-changing historical document that has only recently come to light, the film charts a new understanding of Mahler’s visionary first symphony.  Dramatizations, animation, interviews with the world’s leading experts and an explosive performance conducted by Neeme Järvi bring us into the world of a brash young musician just as he matures into a composer for the ages.