Recently, I came across the name of a composer much admired by Mahler
by the name of Hans Rott.  He was a classmate, and for a time, roommate
of Mahler's.  He died, insane, of tuberculosis at age 25.  Later, Mahler
wrote of him:

  "...a musician of genius ... who died unrecognized and in
  want on the very threshold of his career. ... It is completely
  impossible to estimate what music has lost in him. His First
  Symphony soars to such heights of genius that it makes him
  - without exaggeration - the founder of the New Symphony
  as I understand it. To be sure, what he wanted is not quite
  what he achieved. ... But I know where he aims. Indeed, he
  is so near to my inmost self that he and I seem to me like
  two fruits from the same tree which the same soil has
  produced and the same air nourished. He could have meant
  infinitely much to me and perhaps the two of us would have
  well-nigh exhausted the content of new time which was
  breaking out for music."

I've now heard the First (and only) Symphony a couple of times, and
it is really exciting.  I hear a bit too much Bruckner (Rott's teacher
and advocate) and Wagner --and not enough Mahler-- to fully agree with
Mahler's assessment that this is the beginning of the "New Symphony."
Still, there are dissonances and/or (possibly) modal passages to stretch
Romantic harmony beyond the conventional for 1878.  This may be why the
audience at a competition where the first movement was played responded
with laughter; a response that prompted an outraged defense of the young
composer from Bruckner.

There is also a lot of counterpoint to be savored.  I listened with
headphones and was very pleased.  What is missing is ensemble and any
of Mahler's folk elements.  The overall tone is pretty earnest and
unyielding.

I think Rott is more than just another late Romantic Austrian, and any
fan of Mahler's symphonies should enjoy discovering his roommate.

Zeke

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