Editing Gustav Mahler (section)

====Childhood====
In December 1860, Bernhard Mahler moved with his wife and infant son to the city of [[Jihlava]] ({{langx|de|Iglau|link=no}}),<ref name=Blaukopf18/> where Bernhard built up a successful distillery and tavern business.<ref name=Franklin1>Franklin, (1. Background, childhood education 1860–80)</ref> The family grew rapidly, but of the 12&nbsp;children born to the family in the city, only six survived infancy.<ref name=Blaukopf18/> Jihlava was then a thriving commercial city of 20,000 people, in which Gustav was introduced to music through the street songs of the day, through dance tunes, folk melodies and the trumpet calls and marches of the local military band.<ref>Carr, pp. 8–9</ref> All of these elements would later contribute to his mature musical vocabulary.<ref name=Sadie505/>

When he was four years old, Gustav discovered his grandparents' piano and took to it immediately.<ref name=Blaukopf20>Blaukopf, pp. 20–22</ref> He developed his performing skills sufficiently to be considered a local {{lang|de|[[Wunderkind]]}} and gave his first public performance at the town theatre when he was ten years old.<ref name=Sadie505 /><ref name=Franklin1 /> Although Gustav loved making music, his school reports from the Jihlava {{lang|de|[[Gymnasium (school)|Gymnasium]]}} portrayed him as absent-minded and unreliable in academic work.<ref name=Blaukopf20 /> In 1871, in the hope of improving the boy's results, his father sent him to the New Town Gymnasium in Prague, but Gustav was unhappy there and soon returned to Jihlava.<ref name=Franklin1 /> On 13 April 1875 he suffered a bitter personal loss when his younger brother Ernst (b. 18 March 1862) died after a long illness. Mahler sought to express his feelings in music: with the help of a friend, Josef Steiner, he began work on an opera, {{lang|de|Herzog Ernst von Schwaben}} ("Duke Ernest of Swabia"), as a memorial to his lost brother. Neither the music nor the [[libretto]] of this work has survived.<ref name=Blaukopf20 />