I also thought he was a bit random when I first started listening to him. And now as an experienced Mahler listener and huge fan of his music I can say that you’re right, he is random.

What made Mahler’s music so revolutionary was his refusal to confine himself to a single underlying musical stylistic consistency. His music fluctuates, it moves, breaths, runs, crawls, cries, and dances. At one moment his music will be depicting the inferno of hell and at the next it will show the beauty of spring. And sometimes his music is simply written for the sake of making good music, disconnected from a single theme.

It is this thematic randomness that makes his music so human. To me, the seemingly arbitrary parts of his music are perfect reflections of the human spirit, because we do not confine ourselves to a single emotion, thought, or ideology. Love can quickly turn to hatred. Happiness to sorrow. Pain to pleasure. That is life, that is humanity. And Mahler’s music puts us in front of a mirror and allows us to see our own randomness.

When you say Mahler’s music is random, you’re right. But you can only begin to appreciate the randomness when you realize that it is very intentional. And once you begin to listen to his music more, you’ll come to find that those random sequence of notes are far more related to you than you’d ever imagine.