Product Description
One of the composer’s most popular, accessible works, the 7th has neither a "program" or folk-song theme. It is a purely instrumental composition, both hopeful and romantic in feeling. Reprinted from the authoritative German edition of 1909. List of instruments. Glossary of German terms.
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Customer Reviews (4)

Awful score
The issue here is the score, not the music.Since Dover specializes in reprints, it's forced to use what's in the public domain.The results are consequently uneven.If you're looking for Brahms' orchestral music, or Wagner's late operas (after Lohengrin), Dover's scores are bargains, because the scores printed are reliable.On the other hand, there are Dover scores that one should avoid like the plague, & the reprint of Mahler's Seventh Symphony is one of them.This score was originally printed with 300+ errors, & this is the edition that Dover publishes.In fact, all the errors weren't removed from the score until the critical edition ~ this is true even of the Eulenburg scores, which falsely claimed at every reprint, that the errors had been removed.So if you really want the orchestral score of the Seventh, the only version that's musically defensible is the critical edition.

A Terrific Accompaniment While Listening to Mahler
If you love Mahler, this 7th Symphony score is a remarkable addition to your collection.I began some years ago collecting all the Mahler symphonies on CD performed by various orchestras around the world, and when I discovered that scores were available, I just had to have them, too.For those who may be new to Mahler, I recommend starting with either his Symphony #5 (the 1990 recording with Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic is my favorite) or his Symphony #1 (also 1990 and with Leonard Bernstein, but with the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam) - both are marvelous.To heighten your enjoyment of Mahler, for each Symphony you get on CD, get the score as well.Sometimes I'll even play along on my clarinet. . . .

Symphony No. 7
I think this Symphony is Mahler's 3rd Best Symphony he ever did. This edition of the work, has everything that is played. I am a young to be conductor, and I analyized it already. I totally disagree with the viewer that says that this edition isnt the best. Well, it is the best.

Mahlers finest musical hallucination
A reprint of the original Austrian score at a fraction of the price.This least-known of Mahler's works may indeed be his best.A most unorthodox use of symphonic form takes the listener from dark to light, from terror tojoy; this work spans all the emotions.Unusual instrumentation, like thetenor horn, mandolin, and guitar add to the bizzare but delightfulconcoction.It's a tie with Sym. # 4 for my Mahler favorite. ... Read more

Product Description
Passionate and intense in one moment, ironic or brash in the next, Mahler's music speaks with a diversity of voices that often undermine its own ideals of unity, narrative struggle and transcendent affirmation. The composer plays constantly with musical genres and styles, moving between them without warning in a way that often bewildered his contemporaries. Ranging freely across Mahler's symphonies and songs in a thoughtful and thorough study of his musical speech, Julian Johnson considers how this body of music foregrounds the idea of artifice, construction and musical convention while at the same time presenting itself as act of authentic expression and disclosure. Mahler's Voices explores the shaping of this music through strategies of calling forth its own mysterious voice--as if from nature or the Unconscious--while at other times revealing itself as a made object, often self-consciously assembled from familiar and well-worn materials.

A unique study not of Mahler's works as such but of Mahler's musical style, Mahler's Voices brings together a close reading of the renowned composer's music with wide-ranging cultural and historical interpretation. Through a radical self-awareness that links the romantic irony of the late 18th-century to the deconstructive attitude of the late 20th-century, Mahler's music forces us to rethink historical categories themselves. Yet what sets it apart, what continues to fascinate and disturb, is the music's ultimate refusal of this position, acknowledging the conventionality of all its voices while at the same time, in the intensity of its tone, speaking "as if" what it said were true. However bound up with the Viennese modernism that Mahler prefigured, the urgency of this act remains powerfully resonant for our own age. ... Read more

Product Description
Two brilliantly contrasting masterworks—one scored for a massive ensemble of full orchestra, two choruses and soloist, the other for small orchestra and soloist, the latter also marking Mahler’s move into the contrapuntal style of all his later works. Reprinted from authoritative Viennese editions with new translations of texts.
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Customer Reviews (5)

An economical decision
This two in one score is terrific for the amateur music fan who likes to curl up in their favorite chair on a stormy Saturday night with their headphones and some hot chocolate and hear everything the composer wanted. The print is large enough to see everything that is going on without being so clumsy that it is unmanageable without a stand or table. The price is right too!

Top Class publication
When it comes to musical scores, let's face it, there's not much of a difference between one and another. All the notes must be printed or you're not getting what can properly be called a musical score. But when it comes to Orchestral scores, there is a difference. Here we have each and every instrument's part printed (at least when they can be heard playing) so as we can follow the intricacies of, say, the clarinet part.
Mahler is a totally different case altogether - a composer in a class of his own. Many orchestral scores of Mahler's symphonies give the very least notation possible. This score of Symphonies 3 & 4 in the Dover Orchestral Scores series however, is a top class publication. Why?
Well, Mahler is in a class of his own because when it came to giving directions to his orchestra he did not stop at the Classical Italian markings for Tempo and expression, although strictly speaking this is all that is necessary for a composer to communicate his wishes to the players. Mahler went much further and gave quite specific instructions in German to both the orchestral players and the conductor. For example, directions to the Horn players to hold the bell of the instrument up in the air, explain to the listener why the horns sound different in these passages; advice given to Timpanists as to what kind of sticks to use at certain times explain the different effects we hear. Then there are instructions to solo players, for example, not to pay too much attention to the rest of the orchestra, but to play their part in a slightly slower manner thus exaggerating the importance of their solo. Dover Orchestral Scores do us the great service of actually printing all these instructions, just as in the original score i.e. in German. But their thoughtfulness reaches right on to printing a Glossary of the terms used as well as the texts written or used by Mahler in the symphonies.
This makes using Dover's scores a real pleasure and we really can hear if the recording we are listening to actually plays the music the way Mahler would have wanted. I can think of no better way of rating our recordings ourselves and not just taking the conductor's or the Studio's word for it.

Excellent price and value... but wanted to clarify...
Someone mentioned how invaluable it is to own the score because you can refer to it when you read an article, or review, or liner notes that make references to a measure number.

Well, this book is useful only if you number the measures yourself with a pencil (which would take a very long time), since the book actually does NOT supply measure numbers.It supplies a number of figures... (for instance, if i remember correctly, Symphony No. 3's 1st movement has 76 figures).But each figure can be any number of measures, so when you read an article that makes reference to measure 435, you simply won't be able to find it, without actually numbering the measures yourself.

Otherwise, it is a very good book.Dover has managed to bring complete scores of great works to the average budget-conscious consumer, and this is truly an excellent book that covers two amazing symphonies.You are bound to learn a lot about orchestration just from studying these.I am particularly fond of studying the brass sections in the first movement of the 3rd Symphony... Truly phenomenal composition!

Wonderful Mahler 3 and 4
This is a must for those wishing to study and understand Mahler's Immense third symphony.The print is very large and readable.Though I wish there were more translations for the German text, there is enough in the parts themselves to take a guess.Mahler's 4th is a charming piece.I love it for it's sincerity and modesty.Being the shortest and "simplestic" orchestration, it makes a great introductory Mahler symphony.

The score is very durable and is large and easy to read.The price is wonderful -- for the starving music student, particularly!

I highly reccommend this score to professionals and those adventurous listers out there.

Great Symphonies
Listening to Mahler's 3rd symphony is an inexorable experience. Readingthe score while listening is ecstatic. It adds a lot to the enjoyment ofthe music if you have a copy of the score in hand. You can relate anothersensory organ to the music, elevating the experience to greaterheights.

Before I had the score, all I knew was there were several Frenchhorns playing the opening call in the 3rd (M3) but I know now that thereare exactly 8 horns playing in unison. Like Aaron Copland said in his book'What to Listen for in Music', "If there exists a more noble soundthan eight horns singing a melody fortissimo in unison, I have never heardit". I think he's referring to M3's opening horn call. Magnificent!And now with the score in hand, I know exactly how the music was put on thescore by Mahler, it's notation, expressive remarks, etc.

In some booksthat I read or even in the liner books that comes with the CDs, there isoften reference to the measures in the music. Without the score, you willnever know which measure that they are talking about. If you're really aMahler fan, or for that matter, if you are really into a certain piece ofmusic, buy the score. Believe me, it will add to your enjoyment.

However,some of you may think that it's a waste of time since you do not know howto read music. Yes, knowing how to read music will help a lot buy hey!reading music is not difficult to learn. All you need is to have thepassion for music inside you and the passion to explore the music. If youhave this, there's nothing that can be in your way.

The Dover series ofscores are mostly reliable. Commercially, they are the best there is. ... Read more

Product Description
Available again for a new generation of Mahlerians, Donald Mitchell's famous study of the composer's early life and music was greeted as a major advance on its first appearance in 1958. Revised and updated in the early 1980s, this paperback edition includes a new introduction by the author to bring this classic work once again to the forefront of Mahler studies. From his birth in Bohemia, then part of the mighty Austro-Hungarian empire, to a survey of his early works, many now lost, Gustav Mahler: The Early Years forms an indispensable prelude to the period of the great compositions. The conflicts which came to mark Mahler's music and personality had their beginnings in his childhood and youth. Without understanding the territorial, social and familial conflicts of this time one cannot truly appreciate the impulses behind the major symphonies and song cycles of his later years. DONALD MITCHELL was born in 1925. Two composers have been central to his writings on music, Gustav Mahler and Benjamin Britten. His three studies of Mahler, The Early Years (1958), The Wunderhorn Years (1975), and Songs and Symphonies of Life and Death (1985), are among the enduring monuments of postwar Mahler literature. He was founder Professor of Music at the University of Sussex (1971-76), was visiting Professor at King's College, London, and is currently a visiting Professor at the Universities of Sussex and York. ... Read more

Product Description
Crises in the life of Gustav Mahler inspired some of his greatest works—but eventually led to an early death

The life of the brilliant composer and conductor Gustav Mahler was punctuated by crisis. His parents both died in 1889, leaving him the reluctant head of a household of siblings. He himself endured a nearly fatal medical ordeal in 1901. A beloved daughter died in 1907 and that same year, under pressure, Mahler resigned from the directorship of the Vienna Opera. In each case Mahler more than mastered the trauma; he triumphed in the creation of new major musical works.

The final crisis of Mahler’s career occurred in 1910, when he learned that his wife, Alma, was having an affair with the architect Walter Gropius. The revelation precipitated a breakdown while Mahler was working on his Tenth Symphony. The anguished, suicidal notes Mahler scrawled across the manuscript of the unfinished symphony revealed his troubled state. A four-hour consultation with Sigmund Freud in Leiden, Holland, restored the composer’s equilibrium. Although Mahler left little record of what transpired in Leiden, Stuart Feder has reconstructed the encounter on the basis of surviving evidence. The cumulative stresses of the crises in Mahler’s life, in particular Alma’s betrayal, left him physically and emotionally vulnerable. He became ill and died soon after in 1911.

At once a sophisticated consideration of Mahler’s work and a psychologically acute portrait of the life events that shaped it, this book extends our thinking about one of the great masters of modern music.



Stuart Feder is clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and attending psychiatrist at Beth Israel Hospital in New York. He is also on the faculties of The New York Psychoanalytic Institute and The Juilliard School in New York.

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Customer Reviews (1)

Wonderful, fascinating read ...
This was a fascinating read from start to finish.Feder's psychoanalsis and assumptions aside, Mahler's life was already interesting and filled with excess drama.His relationship with his wife (another fascinating character) and all the name droppings around their small circle of friends/lovers/associates, etc., made this account one any Mahler fan will read cover to cover in a day or two.Just great stuff. ... Read more

Product Description
As a leading European conductor and the composer of enormous and controversial symphonies, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) inspired mythologizers in his own lifetime. Some of them were personal friends, concerned with countering biased criticism of him in which German-nationalist, hide-bound traditionalist or anti-Semitic elements were often mixed. In this new biography, Peter Franklin reconfronts the myth of Mahler-the-misunderstood-hero and attempts to find the person, or persons, behind the legends. His illuminating biography shows Mahler to be a profoundly sensitive thinker and composer, a dictatorial conductor and husband, an iconoclast and paradoxically, a traditionalist.Amazon.com Review
This is a well-written biography that eschews mythology infavor of a closer examination of both biographical and musicalmaterials. A generation after the first wave of Mahlerappreciation, Peter Franklin takes a new look from a different angleand succeeds in separating myth from fact, making this book a mostwelcome one. It does, however, presume a certain amount of priorknowledge of Mahler, his circle, and his music, so don't go into itcompletely cold. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

a Big little book on Mahler
At 228 pages long, including the index, this looks like a good introductory book on Mahler.As part of a series called "Musical lives" the reader would be further inclined to believe this is an introductory work.

But let the reader beware:this little book is much bigger than it looks.Peter Franklin wanted to be certain that his book would not fall into some of the preconceptions established by so many earlier works.Thus, he is very careful to put his remarks in the context of the times, carefully explaining the intellectual, sociological, and political climates that played a role in how Mahler saw himself, and how the world saw him and his music.

To provide an example of this approach:three of the chapter titles are: "Becoming a musician in Vienna" and "Imperial and royal (Nature and the city)." and "Alma's Mahler."So what you get in this book is not a simple chronology of Gustav Mahler's life, but a look at his life with constant references to psychological influences, and the changing worlds that Mahler lived in.Perhaps it was the diversity of the cities and countries where Mahler conducted (and their political climates) that explains why his own compositions were adored in some parts and ridiculed in others.

Be advised that this is not a book for Mahler beginners.It sometimes requires an effort to keep in mind the attitudes and conventions being tied in to the events in Mahler's life.To try to explain the life of a musical genius in relation to the many worlds he lived in is certainly no small task.But then this is a BIG little book!

A good, aloof Mahler biography.
This biography is an excellent introduction into the life of the composer Gustav Mahler. The creative process of his symphonies and his relationship with his wife, the free-spirited Alma, is revealed in great detail, and Franklin avoids any declaration of opinion, forming assumptions through thorough research. And the research comes from reliable resources (Alma's diaries, Mahler's letters, Bauer-Lechner's accounts), and Franklin is clear when the resource may not be all-together reliable.

I particularly appreciated the way he handled the hot topic of the detrimental relationship between Mahler and Alma. He claims that the uneasy marriage is due to the fault of both. Mahler wanted Alma to be an ideal wife, but she desired to be free. Some could say that she was an early feminist, but Franklin doesn't make that assertion. The reader is left to form his own opinion.

The storytelling is often very lucid simply by the careful arrangement of primary accounts, be they newspaper articles, memoirs, letters or diary entries.

The book is not a threatening size, but the content is not something that can be absorbed all in one sitting. Two-hundred pages probably isn't enough to explain all of Mahler's life, but I believe everything of general import is mentioned in this book and analysis is thorough and journalistically sound.

A tribute to a philosophical, creative genious
The first glance of this biography told me that what I was about to read was an incredabley detailed and devoted branch of modern, biographical literature (warning, have some prior basic knowledge of Mahler before reading!) Dr. Franklin has certainly shined in this exploration, which cerculates the success of a once dreamy, inspirational child, who became a more practical intellectual both as a composer and conducter. The relationships between Mahler's life and his music are forefronted amongst a variety of primrary and secondary sources, including people most close to the impatient, hot-tempered perfectionist, contrasted with those who simply try to interperate his ideas. The course of development is fine-tuned, also, with several illustrated sources, indicating the places where Mahler had worked and their significances. Within this course embodies the causes and effects of his ideas. Austria-Hungary was riddled with anti-semites, which affected Mahler in more ways than one. Vienna, deaths, modernists, religion, nature, nationalism, and other aspects are explored due to their effect, making this exceptional innovator the eclectic, liberal idealist he would increasingly become. These aspects are brought to us honestly and without bias, which is one of Franklins' great assests. The biography is backed up extensively by quotes, especially from the accounts of de La Grange and auxiliary versions. An introduction prepares the reader with Franklin's task throughout the book, accompanied by the usual notes and useful aids, especially for readers wishing to pursue their interests towards other texts.
The special aspect of theis book is the story being told as it was, with the relationships between Mahler and his wife, the people he worked with, friends, family, and even counter-examinations, where no bias lies. The criticisms are presented to us as well as more valuable accounts recording Mahler's abnormal personality in a way in which we can truely get to grips with this man's philosophy, stringing his ideas in juxtaposition and calculating his aims and methods of going about them. If you like song, dance, long and flowing melodies and richly expressive harmonies, then you will certainly take to the nine symphonies of Mahler. Mahler's sense of colour ranks with the great masters of orchestration, and the spirit of song permeates his art, taking inspirations from cultures of countries like China, with the poems of Li Po. You can learn much more about his sources of inspiration, the times in which he composed, and how those times affected Mahler throughout this biography. Franklin brings forthe descriptions and induces two-way notions to get the reader thinking about these sources, as well as picturing Vienna at the turn of the century and the changing, post-romantic era.
Mahler's life is remarkable, and Peter Franklin has clearly gone to trouble not to offend the person that he was and became, acknowledging the borders that shield wrongs lines of thought. For example, Mahler's wife (Alma) insists "a person should remain a 'person' and not be frozen into a legend, turned into an insufferable plaster-bust". Although we tend to think of composers as slightly odd, abnormal and completely different to ourselves, we must remember that they're still human beings. Franklin injects other points which back this up, touching on Mahler's love for nature and spirit, as well as art, love and religion. I have presented enough of the core elements of the biography, and so what is left is to declare the book as an excellent portrayal, using a variety of techniques in order to capture Mahler the Musician, and the real Mahler, whom always questioned the relationship of his life and his music. The book tends to display thoughts of irony, especially about Mahler's death, and would suit any musicain wishing to broaden thier philosophical answers to why we, and issues like those in Mahler's competitive life, exist. Indeed, any philosopher with enough scape to facilitate a focussed examination of a famous composer would find this biography useful. The book, however, does tend to be slightly uneasy about its purpose (in relation to two major preoccupations which are induced by two statements highlighted in the introduction). Franklin acknowledges this, and says there lies a knot of wide "interrelated issues concerning notions about 'art' and 'genious' and the ways in which they were mediated in the individual experience and in public creative activity in nineteenth-century Europe". That does not mean, though, that one can't interperat Franklins' notions; I found that the concepts of the string of issues formed neater towards the end by re-examining the two statements previously mentioned. That way, synoptically, one can focuss and understand the purpose of the accounts and methods in which the author put them to us, so that we may assemble the notions to acheive the resolution which every reader desires. If you are intellectual enough to percept the outcomes of this intelligent journey, simply jump on board! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

His Wife's Perspective
Gustav Mahler, Memories and Letters is his wife, Alma's account of her life with the brilliant composer and conductor.

Although many historians stress occasional errors and distortions on Alma's part, can many of us really overcome the foibles of seeing things through our own eyes?

Yes, sometimes she does not remember correctly which symphony he was conducting on a particular day.But this book does provide readers with insights into what daily life was like with this musical genius.His letters demonstrate both his love for music, and his goal of doing justice to each composer's intentions, AND his abiding love for his wife and daughters.

Other books can provide you with more complete information on his symphonies--when and where they were performed, and what was thought about them at the time.This book is for those who want to learn more about the man--from the woman he both neglected and yet adored.Even with its occasional faults, Alma's description of their life together is invaluable to all of us who love and wish to better understand the "one-of-a-kind" Gustav Mahler. ... Read more

Product Description
Well known for its grand opening movement and glorious choral finale, Mahler’s Second Symphony is scored for solo soprano, solo mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra. Reprinted from the authoritative Josef Weinberger edition, this inexpensive high-quality volume features the full score in a conveniently sized edition for study at home, in the classroom or concert hall.
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Customer Reviews (3)

Very good definitive edition
As the others have said, the score is small enough to be convenient and large enough to read for the most part, although there are two or three pages where some staves are faded slightly. I just wish that there was a glossary of some sort or a translation of all of Mahler's orchestral markings.

A Great Bargain
Dover's entire line of miniature scores is great for anyone who wishes to have a deeper knowledge of great orchestral works without paying $20 or more the full-sized version.I own the 8 of Mahler's 9 symphonies that Dover offers in this series (the 7th Symphony is currently unavailable) and have been very pleased with them.The print is large enough to be easy to read without having to deal with a cumbersome full-sized score.

Wonderful edition of a legendary piece!
Gustav Mahler is one of the last truely great symphony writers.His orchestrations are vast and his use of tone shows his true mastery of composition. This edition is the perfect book for any music lover, especially Mahler fans.It is small enough to slip easily into a purse or jacket pocket for use in the concert hall or in a bookbag or backpack for school.It is ideal for the professional conductor and compsoer as well as the music fan who wishes to own a written copy of the greatest symphony ever written.Also, its wide margins are perfect for note taking or analysis.This is truely the perfect score for the music lover.I own about 5 and plan on adding to my collection very shortly. Other great Dover items include the miniature scores for Beethoven's 5th and 9th symphonies, which are among the standard literature for every major orchestra worldwide, and the miniature score of Mozart's powerful Requiem Mass in D minor. ... Read more

Product Description
The popularity of Mahler's symphonic works is unremitting. More recordings have been made during the past ten years than in the previous six decades. This work is a companion to the first volume, published in 1986; together, the two review virtually every recording commercially released (as well as some private issues). The intention of both works is to provide a comprehensive analysis of all recordings. A general overview is combined with details of particular importance. Recordings of special merit are noted. The objective critical discussions will appeal to the newcomer as well as the knowledgeable devotee, and the work will serve as a valuable addition to university, music school, and public libraries, as well as any music lover's library. ... Read more

Product Description
Hundreds of the letters that Gustav Mahler addressed to his parents and siblings survive, yet they have remained virtually unknown. Now, for the first time Mahler scholar Stephen McClatchie presents over 500 of these letters in a clear, lively translation in The Mahler Family Letters . Drawn primarily from the Mahler-Rose Collection at the University of Western Ontario, the volume presents a complete, well-rounded view of the family's correspondence.

Spanning the mid 1880s through 1910, the letters record the excitement of a young man with a bourgeoning career as a conductor and provide a glimpse into his day-to-day activities rehearsing and conducting operas and concerts in Budapeast and Hamburg, and composing his first symphonies and songs. On the private side, they document his parents' illnesses and deaths and the struggles of his siblings Alois, Justine, Otto, and Emma. The letters also give Mahler's insightful impressions of contemporaries such as Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, and Hans von Bulow, as well as his personal feelings about significant events, such as his first big success--the completion of Carl Maria von Weber's Die drei Pintos in 1889. In the fall of 1894, the character of the letters changes when Justine and Emma come to live with Mahler in Hamburg and then Vienna, removing the need to communicate by letter about quotidian matters. At this point, the letters relay noteworthy events such as Mahler's campaign to be named Director of the Vienna Court Opera, his conducting tours throughout Europe, and his courtship of Alma Schindler. The Mahler Family Letters provides a vital, nuanced source of information about Mahler's life, his personality, and his relationships. McClatchie has generously annotated each letter, contextualizing and clarifying contemporary historical references and Mahler family acquaintances, and created an indispensable resource for all Mahlerists, 19th-century musicologists, and historians of 19th-century Germany and Austria. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Even the most sublime artists have to pay the bills
50 years ago a performance of any of Mahler's musical works was extremely rare.Now, it seems no scrap of information about him is unworthy of publication.This book draws together the letters preserved at the University of Western Ontario and a few others from various collections, running from Mahler's student days in Vienna in the 1870s until the year of his death, 1911.Most of the letters are addressed to his sister, Justine Mahler-Rose, who lived with her brother a number of years before their respective marriages within one day of each other in 1902.Although one must appreciate the immense amount of scholarly work by Professor McClatchie necessary to translate, annotate and date the often undated correspondence, their content is very commonplace.Although there is the occasional interesting reference to personalities and events in Mahler's artistic career, these are infrequent and rarely detailed.There is no insight at all into his personal creative life.The most frequent topics of the letters are family health matters and money.In the book's 399 pages of text, he probably asks Justine a hundred times how many Marks or Florins he needs to send her on the first of the month.Gustav was the only one of the surviving Mahler siblings to be steadily employed, and he all but supported his two brothers and two sisters for years after their parents' deaths.Most of the letters are so mundane that no one would spend a minute with them if they were not written by Mahler, and the few interesting revelations in them have already been well covered in H. L. de la Grange's ongoing four-volume saga of the composer's life.By comparison, the recently published volume of his letters to his wife is far more insightful for someone seeking Mahler's private persona. The text is nearly error free, well footnoted, and buttressed by an identification guide to persons mentioned in the letters, but falls down in the picture section: a studio photo of Otto Mahler, who committed suicide in 1895, is labeled "Gustav Mahler," and a snapshot labeled as his wife, Alma, surely is of Justine. An index is provided.Only the most dedicated Mahlerian need bother, especially since the disparity between the information the book contains and its cover price is really immense. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Silencing Chaos
Gustav Mahler by Bruno Walter is an anomalous memoir of Gustav Mahler by another of the 20th century's great composers, yet it reads more like a hagiography (an idolizing biography) by a venerable disciple who was vastly influenced by Mahler following his acceptance to become the Austrian's assistant at the Vienna Court Opera House. Bruno Walter, German but of proverbial Jewish temperament, enjoyed an intimate musical relationship with his troubled mentor. This monograph allows us to scour the prejudices that have been imputed on Gustav Mahler, be it due to misunderstandings or facile psychologization. Sharing a vocation for the mystical intimacy of music, this memoir reminisces how the tantrums, the irascible dour demeanor, not to mention his petulant and demanding ways, were but the inevitable make-up of a Faustian striving for perfection. Not surprisingly Thomas Mann narrated such fact in fiction in his magnum opus Doctor Faustus, where the composer is a rather faithful description of Mahler and his music (with Theodor's Adorno's musical direction in the matter).
The rage that ebbs throughout the life of Mahler is here viewed as an over brimming sense of responsibility, that at the behest of his exalted calling he felt compelled to dedicate his entire being. The many ways he came to shock ordinary people, the Wittgenstein intensity of his preoccupations, and the impetuous genius. By contrast Bruno Walter's style was dictated by a belief in cajolery and tact persuasion, which Mahler was boldly dismissive of. There is an element of a grotesque grandeur that becomes pervasive at lengths as Walter condescends to the fascinating personality of Mahler, and less frequently he becomes apologetic towards a musical idiom that extorted the orchestrations of a a man whose penchant for climactic banalities in music equaled those in his relationship with the world about him.
There is not much of interest when it comes to the musical interpretation of Mahler, where the influences of Beethoven is paraphrased, and moreover the distinctive startling juxtaposition of ironic and parodic elements that, although without influence or ancestry, Bruno Walter describes as Post-Wagnerian.
The complexity of the psychic disorder and the unprecedented use of the counterpoint to articulate his sense of the radical incompatibility of human experience is overlooked: A blaring oversight which should be unforgivable would it not be for the testament the disciple gives of the man who most influenced him and the personality that deepened his musical intuition.
The moment most particular and of greatest philosophical beauty in Mahler's works, is the innocuous heroic dramatization with the chaos about us, which yields nothing more than a tenuous thread of awaiting extinction, where triumphs is achieved by a peaceful resignation, extinguished and extinguishing, where the exhaustion of being is rendered as a culminating surcease, oblivion as a hint of ecstasy before the void consumes all we are. Silence is put on a pyre and burns bright, enflamed by despair and then flickers away leaving behind but the warmth of embers readying to freeze into the absence desire.
Although the biography is stilted with occasional apercus about Mahler's personality, it fails to bring out the essence of the music. For such insights I should address the reader of this review to Kurt Blaukopf's comprehensive read "Mahler: His Life, Work and World"; Deryck Cooke's superb and concentrated introduction; and best of all, Theodor Adorno's "Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy", by far the most outstanding and insightful work on the Austrian composer in print. Finally for a recording that sheds some light on Mahler, Benjamin Zander's rendition of Mahler's Ninth Symphony issued by Telarc, adds a third CD where the maestro discusses Mahler, the performance and its philosophy underpinning. And to boot, it is the single best performance out there today of Mahler's arguably most important symphony, characterized with melancholy, gusto, and overpowering emotional detail. Bruno Walter's performances by contrast are a good listen and an interpretation, which like this little volume, fails to heed of that which is most representative of Mahler's oeuvre.

silenced chaos
Gustav Mahler by Bruno Walter is an anomalous memoir of Gustav Mahler by another of the 20th century's great composers, yet it reads more like a hagiography (an idolizing biography) by a venerable disciple who was vastly influenced by Mahler following his acceptance to become the Austrian's assistant at the Vienna Court Opera House. Bruno Walter, German but of proverbial Jewish temperament, enjoyed an intimate musical relationship with his troubled mentor. This monograph allows us to scour the prejudices that have been imputed on Gustav Mahler, be it due to misunderstandings or facile psychologization. Sharing a vocation for the mystical intimacy of music, this memoir reminisces how the tantrums, the irascible dour demeanor, not to mention his petulant and demanding ways, were but the inevitable make-up of a Faustian striving for perfection. Not surprisingly Thomas Mann narrated such fact in fiction in his magnum opus Doctor Faustus, where the composer is a rather faithful description of Mahler and his music (with Theodor's Adorno's musical direction in the matter).
The rage that ebbs throughout the life of Mahler is here viewed as an over brimming sense of responsibility, that at the behest of his exalted calling he felt compelled to dedicate his entire being. The many ways he came to shock ordinary people, the Wittgenstein intensity of his preoccupations, and the impetuous genius. By contrast Bruno Walter's style was dictated by a belief in cajolery and tact persuasion, which Mahler was boldly dismissive of. There is an element of a grotesque grandeur that becomes pervasive at lengths as Walter condescends to the fascinating personality of Mahler, and less frequently he becomes apologetic towards a musical idiom that extorted the orchestrations of a a man whose penchant for climactic banalities in music equaled those in his relationship with the world about him.
There is not much of interest when it comes to the musical interpretation of Mahler, where the influences of Beethoven is paraphrased, and moreover the distinctive startling juxtaposition of ironic and parodic elements that, although without influence or ancestry, Bruno Walter describes as Post-Wagnerian.
The complexity of the psychic disorder and the unprecedented use of the counterpoint to articulate his sense of the radical incompatibility of human experience is overlooked: A blaring oversight which should be unforgivable would it not be for the testament the disciple gives of the man who most influenced him and the personality that deepened his musical intuition.
The moment most particular and of greatest philosophical beauty in Mahler's works, is the innocuous heroic dramatization with the chaos about us, which yields nothing more than a tenuous thread of awaiting extinction, where triumphs is achieved by a peaceful resignation, extinguished and extinguishing, where the exhaustion of being is rendered as a culminating surcease, oblivion as a hint of ecstasy before the void consumes all we are. Silence is put on a pyre and burns bright, enflamed by despair and then flickers away leaving behind but the warmth of embers readying to freeze into the absence desire.
Although the biography is stilted with occasional apercus about Mahler's personality, it fails to bring out the essence of the music. For such insights I should address the reader of this review to Kurt Blaukopf's comprehensive read "Mahler: His Life, Work and World"; Deryck Cooke's superb and concentrated introduction; and best of all, Theodor Adorno's "Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy", by far the most outstanding and insightful work on the Austrian composer in print. Finally for a recording that sheds some light on Mahler, Benjamin Zander's rendition of Mahler's Ninth Symphony issued by Telarc, adds a third CD where the maestro discusses Mahler, the performance and its philosophy underpinning. And to boot, it is the single best performance out there today of Mahler's arguably most important symphony, characterized with melancholy, gusto, and overpowering emotional detail. Bruno Walter's performances by contrast are a good listen and an interpretation, which like this little volume, fails to heed of that which is most representative of Mahler's oeuvre.
... Read more

Product Description
Gustav Mahler was one of the greatest conductors and composers of his time, acclaimed throughout Europe and America for his full-blooded interpretations of a repertoire that ranged from Mozart and Beethoven to Wagner and Strauss, and for his own richly orchestrated pieces. Today his music is almost a cult: intensely emotional and evocative, it stirs and inspires the listener, and it awakens curiosity as to the nature of the man who created it.This book brings together a wealth of contemporary material--letters, reviews, concert programs, diary extracts--to create a picture of Mahler in his own words and those of his friends, colleagues, and critics. From his early childhood to the days of his final triumphs in Vienna and New York, his life, attitudes, beliefs, conflicts, loves, and losses are recorded and presented in vivid detail. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Mahler With Love
Having been an afficionado of Mahler for over 50 years there was nothing much in this book I didn't know, but it was intersting and enjoyable nonetheless,particularly because of the heavy use of quotes from actual letters and documents. I found particularly poignant the telling of Mahler's last days at the NY Philharmonic and his troubles with its board's womens auxiliary and then, finally, his last trip home to Vienna and his death

Mahler: His Life, Work and World
It's a great story about Mahler, his time, and his life. If you use this book together with some CD's you get an opportunity to learn about his music AND to understand it. How wonderful .... Helmut

it deserves the 5 stars...
** Mahler (1860-1911) must have lost heart of composing after seeing Freud?

The circumstances surrounding the composition of the Tenth were highly unusual - the revelation that his young wife had had an affair with the architect Walter Gropius
The unsettled frame of Mahler's mind found expression in the despairing comments (many addressed to Alma) written on the manuscript of the Tenth, and must have influenced its composition: (True?) on the final page of the short score, Mahler wrote, "für dich leben! für dich sterben!" (To live for you! To die for you!) and the exclamation "Alms chi!" underneath the last soaring phrase.(Alms=money for the poor???) Alma kept the score with its final tribute in her living room - like a hunting trophy - the score refers to his unfinished 10th symphony. Was it inscribed on the score of the 10th? Mahler composed sketches of five movements!!!!

There is no sign that Mahler ever worked on the 10th Symphony again (Started in July 1910) after his visit to Freud in August 1910 - until he died August 10, 1911.Could it be that he intentionally kept his 10th unfinished - In Sept 1910 Mahler ended his efforts on the 10thDid he leave it unfinished for Alma to complete the work after he's gone; as to make up for his mistake when (1902) he ruled Alma out of composing. Or he did not finish it and temporarily put it aside to be able to make final revisions to the Ninth?

Mahler struggles in the 10th. a) Dissonance piled on dissonance and pierced by a high trumpet A, which erupts in the first movement. The shock of Gropius letters? Alma's accusations? (of WHAT??) Hardly less appalling is the muffled drum stroke which ends in the fourth movement and is repeated in the fifth. Alma links it to the episode when they heard together from a funeral cortege which passed far below their hotel window during their first winter in New York (Mahler's gloom during his happiest days-backlog of anti-Semitic complexities!!). Perhaps that is where Mahler got his raw material, but doesn't he use it here to a deeper and more recent movement with the echoes of the song about a child left to starve to death. Isn't Mahler now (or again) the abandoned one? - Again backlog of anti-Semitic complexities!!-He scrawled tortured words on the manuscript among them "" Mercy!! Oh God! Oh God! Why hast thou forsaken me?""--""The devil dances it with me/Madness seize me, accursed one/Destroy me/That I forgot, that I am"" like several notes Mahler left for Alma in the farmhouse. He may have written something more shocking on the bottom half of the Purgatories' title page, but the section has been sliced off, presumably by Alma.

After Mahler sought counseling from Sigmund Freud and on the verge of its successful première in Munich he dedicated the Eighth Symphony to Alma in a desperate attempt to repair the breach. ((Premiered in Munich on September 12, 1910 featured a chorus of about 850, with an orchestra of 171)) Did Freud recommend that Mahler dedicate his 8th to Alma?
Emanuel Garcia - an American psychoanalyst - puts this case eloquently in a paper made public in 1994.
Mahler suffered from Oedipal Conflict - A complex of males; desire to possess the mother sexually and to exclude the father; said to be a source of personality disorders if unresolved -

Quote"" In the unending debate about the effectiveness of psychotherapy, the creativity question remains unresolved. What happens to art when medicine meddles with an artist's mind? There are two known instances of composers who sought psychiatric help. On the afternoon of 26 August 1910, Gustav Mahler spent four hours discussing his marital difficulties with Sigmund Freud as they strolled through the Dutch town of Leiden. The two great minds achieved instant rapport. Freud said later that no-one had ever grasped psychoanalysis so swiftly. Mahler, for his part, felt much better. 'Be joyful!' he cabled his young wife, Alma. unquote

***Two persons must have shaped Mahler's personality:
1)Leo Pinsker (1821-1891) was born in Poland.
One of the first Jews to attend Odessa University, he studied law, but realized that, as a Jew, he had little chance of becoming a lawyer, so he studied medicine at the University of Moscow, returning to Odessa to practice in 1849. When pogroms started in Odessa in 1871, enlightened Jews were distraught. Assimilation activities ceased and Pinsker returned to medicine, becoming prominent in public life. Within a few years, these activities were renewed, but they were brought to a sudden halt in 1881, when another wave of pogroms began in southern Russia.
The concept of channeling Russian Jewish emigration to one country was rebuffed in Vienna and Paris, where Jewish leaders favored emigration to the U.S. rather than a Jewish homeland.(Mahler also did so).
"... to the living the Jew is a corpse, to the native a foreigner, to the homesteader a vagrant, to the proprietary a beggar, to the poor an exploiter and a millionaire, to the patriot a man without a country, for all a hated rival."

2)Sigmund Freud: 1856-1939
Was Freud interested in music at all? Exactly what Freud cured is unclear. Emmanuel Garcia, psychiatric consultant to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, has postulated a theory that Mahler's libido ((psychoanalysis) a Freudian term for sexual urge or desire) was restored by talking to Freud. If so it made little difference, as Alma continued seeing her young lover, the future Bauhaus founder, Walter Gropius. As for any effect on Mahler's music, there was none. He died nine months later, of heart disease. Freud, seeing the obituary, sent the estate a back-dated invoice. Privately, Freud acknowledged that his treatment of Mahler had been superficial. It was, he said, 'as if you would dig a single shaft through a mysterious building'.""

*** Alma MARIA Mahler?? (Maria) - Maria is Mahler's mother name!!!! Mahler's first daughter' name was Maria too - she died of scarlet fever!!!

**His last words were "Mozartl" - (a diminutive, corresponding to 'dear little Mozart'

Now, let me go back in time:

**In 1902, Mahler married Alma Maria Schindler, the daughter of a Viennese painter; she was very much younger than her husband. The same year the Second Symphony was performed again, this time to great acclaim. His symphonies were being published and interest was being shown in performing his works. Mahler's scrupulous ethics - Characterized by extreme care and great effort - meant that he would not promote his own works; he rarely conducted performances of his symphonies and disapproved when singers from the Vienna Opera performed his songs as part of recitals, but beyond Vienna his reputation as a composer was growing.

**Did Alma love their first born daughter (who died in infancy) -Putzi (1902-1907) because the baby caused great pain on delivery - breech deliver - ?? > Mahler joked `'baby has come out with her tattouz facing the world''

**Mahler's Sixth Symphony "tragic"" written during his happiest periods. Married in 1902, two babies 1902-1904, isn't that strange?Same as in (Songs on the Death of Children), for voice and orchestra (1901-1904

**Alma loved her husband AFTER he was gone (Not before!!)(Was it so ??) She simply saw the difference when she married her lover Gropius.Strange that when she was not married to Mahler, she loved him and hated her husband after marriage. When she was not married to Gropius, she loved him and only hated him after marriage... was she a balanced woman??

**Das Lied von der Erde - the song of the Earth - 1908-1910- is having Chinese characteristics - taken from Chinese Poetry... he completed (The Song of the Earth), and his Symphony No. 9, that Mahler avoided numbering it as a symphony due to a superstitious fear of the. However as Song of the Earth he did it late in his life (1908-1909) was that to demonstrate his growing disgust with Western Culture that was anti-Semitic.

**Mahler rose to prominence as musical director of the Vienna Opera, and under his leadership the VO experienced its golden age.

**Complexities of being a Jew. Mahler was born in Kalischt, Bohemia, on July 7, 1860.At the time, Bohemia (later to form a major component of Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic) was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, then enduring its final crumbling decades, and the region where Mahler spent his youth was strongly associated with the Czech independence movement.
However, Mahler also was a Jew, and Jews in the region were associated by ethnic Czechs with Germans.Mahler famous quote is: "I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as and Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world.Everywhere an intruder never welcomed."
Then add to that the fact that the public considered Mahler to be a gifted conductor (not a composer!!) with a habit of writing long music. Mahler is also known for the length, depth, and painful emotions of his works. - so public initially must have treated his composing same as Mahler's treated Alma's!!)

**He loved nature and life and, based on early childhood experiences, feared death (family deaths, a suicide, and a brutal rape he witnessed). This duality appears in almost all his compositions, especially in the Kindertotenlieder ("Songs on the Deaths of Children"), which are actually about the loss of an innocent view of life.

**During his leadership of the Vienna Opera he attempted to present Richard Strauss' opera, Salome. Mahler was a basically prudish man, and his wife, Alma Mahler, later stated that he had argued against Strauss setting Wilde's Salome. Strauss, of course, went ahead and composed the piece, submitted it for production by the Vienna Opera, and was informed that the Censorship Board had banned the work due to Strauss' references to Christ and "the representation of events which belong to the realm of sexual pathology..." Rather than agree with the Censor, Mahler instead argued to "...in matters of art only the form and never the content is relevant, or at least should be relevant, from a serious viewpoint. How the subject matter is treated and carried out, not what the subject matter consists of to begin with-that is the only thing that matters. A work of art is to be considered as serious if the artist's dominant objective is to master the subject matter exclusively by artists means and resolve it perfectly to the 'form...'".
Mahler's reign lasted until 1907. He then accepted an offer to conduct the Metropolitan Opera.He conducted two seasons, and then accepted a two-year contract from the Philharmonic Society (now the New York Philharmonic.)

Mahler's time in New York was not positive--he had a low opinion of American concertgoers and musicians, did not get along with the New York critics, and fought with the management of both the Met and the Society.Mahler died in 1911, in poor health and exhausted from his New York battles.

**As Mahler was forced to spend most of the year conducting, he was, throughout his career, a summer composer.He conducted fall through spring, and then retreated to the country to compose.Mahler thus limited his composing to only two genres--the symphony and lieder. Although Mahler had a thirty year long composing career, his complete works could be assembled on fifteen or sixteen CDs.

**His trip to New York. He still needed to provide an income to support his wife and second daughter and so, in late 1907; he accepted an offer from the Metropolitan Opera in New York to conduct the season of 1908. For the next four years, he travelled between Europe and America.

best book so far on Mahler
I cannot improve upon the excellent review previously posted, except to add that the book includes a nice year-by-year biographical section near the beginning of the book, AND dozens of photographs, including an illuminating silhouette sequence of Mahler conducting.This gives us a rare look back in time, at what those watching Mahler in action were able to see.

Better, and better balanced, than most Mahler biographies
This brand-new paperback edition of the 1991 revised English translation of a 1976 indispensable "classic" is superior to virtually any combinationof individual Mahler biographies that come to mind. I hope I'm able toexplain why in this review, and to further explain how it is that a book onMahler can be a "page turner."

The music of Gustav Mahler has been thecenterpiece of my musical listening for virtually all of my adult life, inexcess of 40 years now. It's fair to say that it started for me, as it didfor others of my generation, with the recordings of Bruno Walter in thelate '50's and Leonard Bernstein and others throughout the '60's. It's alsofair to say that Mahler's music engenders intense personalization on thepart of a listener who is drawn in, to the extent that there is a never-ending desire to know more about the man, his creative processes, hisquite obvious contradictions, and the bipolar way in which hiscontemporaries, his critics, his musicians, and audiences and critics eversince his death, have characterized the man and the music.

I have yet toread a Mahler biography or critique that is not in one way or anothercolored by the thoughts and opinions of the biographer, starting with thefirst Mahler biography I read about 30 years ago, by his widow, AlmaWerfel-Mahler. Each has had a "pitch," an agenda, which has left rather anincomplete, and often judgemental, picture of this complex human being.Perhaps, had I read all of them in an attempt to weigh matters in thebalance, I would have been satisfied in having reached a reasonablyaccurate overview.

Kurt and Herta Blaukopf, in their "Mahler: His Life,Work & World," have done something quite different and remarkable. As aresult of reviewing what must have been millions of words by and about theman and his music, incorporating the most up-to-date research on theavailability of these materials, and selecting and incorporating thosepieces that illuminate the man, his music, his life, and the times in whichhe lived, a gripping yet balanced portrait of Mahler, from birth to thefirst posthumous performance of his "Das Lied von der Erde," conducted byBruno Walter on November 20, 1911 (six months after his death).

Along theway, we follow him through success and failure, appointments gained andappointments lost or surrendered, works that came relatively easily andworks that resulted only from Herculean struggle, through his own words andthe words of friends, associates, subordinates, superiors, acquaintances,rivals, and critics (who, it is clear to see from the selections chosen forthis volume, were clearly on one side or the other in the matter of theworth of his music). In several instances, the juxtaposition of criticalreviews by admirers and detractors, published the same day but in differentpapers, lead one to ask "Were these two critics at the same concert?"

Thepages literally fly by. When, in the last year of his life he experiencedhis greatest triumph (the first performances of hs Eighth Symphony) in theface of mortality, the narrative becomes absolutley gripping, despite itsbeing comprised of nothing more than what is in the written record. Thelast dozen or so entries are simply heartbreaking in their poignance as theend approaches, a fellow composer places a valuation on his estate astestator, and, six months after Mahler's death, Anton von Weberncorresponds to Alban Berg about the text to the final poem in "Das Lied vonder Erde" and how, in planning for the two of them to travel to Munich tohear this as-yet-unplayed music, in the premiere conducted by Walter, heknows that they will "...expect to hear the most wonderful music that thereis. Something of such magnificence as has never yet existed." And of courseWebern was absolutely correct in his assessment.

The Blaukopfs note intheir Preface that "The biographer who seeks to portray an artist is unableto resist colouring the picture with his own ideas. Documentation, on theother hand, is more disciplined: it provides the reader with the factualcomponents of Mahler's life and identifies their sources. Each individualcan then fit these pieces together to form their own Mahler portrait." Atbarely 250 pages, this book is a treasure for the Mahlerite. It could havebeen twice or three times as long and still have been the page-turner thatthe Blaukopfs have created from the private papers and public records ofGustav Mahler.

Every Mahlerite should have this volume in his or hercollection.

Bob Zeidler ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Cooke Book on Mahler
Got the book fast. Was exactly what the seller said it was (condition and all). Thanks!

The Perfect Beginner's Introduction To Mahler
When I discovered Mahler 25 years ago having listened to his First Symphony, I was immediately hooked; mainly because of the third movement with its weird alternation of the eerie Frére Jacques funeral march and austrian/german town-band music. Of course I wanted to know more about this not-very-popular composer (at least at the time) of whom the most common comment was that his symphonies were gigantic, excessively long "metaphysical" musical excursions. Not really sure of where to go next after what I had listened, I thought the best way was to buy a book about Mahler. Standing at the book store in front of Donald Mitchell's Mahler: The Early Years and Deryck Cook's Mahler: An Introduction To His Music and after briefly leafing through both, I decided to go for Cook's. The book turned out to be the key that opened up Mahler's musical world to me like a treasure chest. Presenting Mahler's basic biographical facts, its main value is that it takes a beginner by the hand through each of his compositions step by step in a concise manner (the book is only 127 pages long). It's the perfect introduction for a beginner; after Cook's book the interested Mahler fan can graduate on to any of the many biographical or analytical books on Mahler. Biographically, De La Grange's of course, is like the Mahler Bible; although rather imposing - 4 volumes, almost 5,000 pages, $100 per volume - for a Mahlerphile it's a must. On the other hand, Donald Mitchell's authoritative and also extensive still-ongoing work on Mahler (3 volumes so far) although excellent, is a more technical work, Mitchell having stated that his intention is not to tread the path that De La Grange has already trodden. If you want to enter Mahler's world, think no more, Cook's book remains the best introduction for a beginner: accesible, concise and cheap. Highly recommended!

A guidebook for listening to Mahler
There are many books on my favorite composer, Gustav Mahler.
This one is geared specifically to explaining each of his compositions, rather than just providing his biography.

It also provides the words to Mahler's works, in both the original German, and in good English translations, side by side.

Look to one of the many excellent books on Mahler, if you want to find out more about the man and his life.This book is the indispensable, quick source for information on his music.Have it at hand, as you listen to a symphony, or any of the lovely songs on which Mahler based those symphonies. It's especially useful to read the page or two commentary on each symphony, just before you listen to it.You'll get much more out of the music with a better understanding.

Concise but Creditable
Cooke has an insight into the worksand personality of Mahler as the 'completer' of his Tenth Symphony. This book is a brief guide of the life and works of the composer. Interesting biographical detail is interspersedwith information about each symphony. The inclusion of the text of thesongs is a helpful addition as are the words of Mahler's earliest symphoniccomposition 'Das Klagende Lied.' Certainly a work that can be read andre-read with pleasure. ... Read more

Product Description
Mahler's Third Symphony was conceived as a musical picture of the natural world.This handbook describes the composition of Mahler's grandiose piece of philosophical program music in the context of the ideas that inspired it and the artistic debates and social conflicts that it reflects.In this original and wide-ranging account, Peter Franklin takes the Third Symphony as a representative modern European symphony of its period and evaluates the work as both the culmination of Mahler's early symphonic style and a work whose contradictory effects mirror the complexity of contemporary social and musical manners.The music is described in detail, movement by movement, with chapters on the genesis, early performance, and subsequent reception of the work. ... Read more

Product Description
Since its premiere Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) has been widely regarded as his finest masterpiece. It was written in the wake of personal events that shook the foundations of his life in 1907 and, like all his earlier works, it is deeply influenced by the composer's individual and philosophical worldview. Stephen Hefling provides a background to this symphony for voice and orchestra, describes its genesis, summarizes reviews of the premiere, and gives a careful account of all six movements. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An Ideal Companion to Mahler's Masterpiece
Judging by the fact that I am the first reader to review this book, I wonder how many people will read this!
Anyway, this book is a must for real Mahler aficionados, as it explains Mahler's masterpiece in great detail. The book is divided into 4 sections:
1- Preface on Mahler's work before 1908, date of compostion of Das Lied.
2- Genesis.
3- Reception.
4- Study of the Music
Chapter 4 gives an in-depth analysis of each of the six songs (or movements), with an emphasis on the first (Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde) and the last, the marvelous "Der Abschied". At the end of the book, the author gives, as an Appendix, his own English version of the poems, which I found better than all the other translations I have come across so far, as they fit the music very closely.
All in all, a marvelous book, that will greatly help Mahler enthusiasts to better understand and enjoy the masterpiece that he considered to be his Ninth Symphony, but was afraid to publish as such. ... Read more

Product Description
Vividly orchestrated, with innovative symphonic structure and rich emotional expression, this staple of the orchestral repertoire continues to enjoy longstanding popularity. Reprinted from the authoritative Josef Weinberger edition, the inexpensive high-quality volume features the full score in a conveniently sized edition that is ideal for study at home, in the classroom or the concert hall.
... Read more

Product Description
The manuscript of Alma Mahler's Diaries, a pile of old exercise books, lay unread and seemingly illegible in the library of an American university. In search of the truth about Alma and Alexander Zemlinsky, Antony Beaumont read them--and found what he was looking for. But he found far more: the authentic saga of one of the century's most charismatic personalities. The Diaries depict in intimate detail the four years during which Alma grew from adolescence into womanhood. Opening with her first, heady affair with Gustav Klimt, they break off shortly before her marriage to Gustav Mahler. "To me," writes Beaumont, "reading The Diaries is like raising a curtain, behind which stands the Vienna of 1900 in all its majesty, and so close that one can almost reach out and touch it. The vitality of everyday life, eye-witness accounts of significant artistic events, unique insights into the behavioral patterns and linguistic conventions of homo austriacus--all these serve to make the book unique."Having come to grips with Alma's handwriting, Beaumont and his coeditor for the German edition, Susanne Rode-Breymann, added meticulously researched commentaries and annotations. The German edition was published in the autumn of 1997. Amazon.com Review
Alma Mahler was born in Vienna in 1879. As the daughter of thelandscape painter Emile Schindler, she was afforded easy entrance intothe cultural life of the city; it seems that by the time these diariesopen there was no part of the artistic, musical, literary, andtheatrical life in fin-de-siècle Vienna with which Alma was notintimately connected. Before marrying the composer Gustav Mahler in1902, Alma had already been a pupil and lover of Zemlinsky, Klimt, andBurckhard. (And after Mahler died she married Walter Gropius, had anaffair with Oskar Kokoschka, and then married Franz Werfel.) Incombining the naiveté of a teenager on the cusp of womanhoodwith a wonderfully frank account of a remarkable time and place, Almahas left a priceless and unique record of personal and artistichistory. The editor and translator Antony Beaumont rightly commentsthat reading the diaries is like "raising a curtain, behind whichstands the Vienna of 1900 in all its majesty. So close that you canalmost reach out and touch it". --Nick Wroe ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

An enjoyable, gossipy read from turn-of-the-century Vienna
These diaries are basically the gossipy 19-year-old emotings of a femme fatale in the making, one of the 20th century's most celebrated muses. I knew Alma Schindler married Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel, and had an affair in there somewhere with Oskar Kokoschka. But until I started reading this I didn't realize she had serious flirtations with Gustav Klimt and Alexander von Zemlinsky as well, even before marrying Mahler.

It's a fascinating read -- a bit trashy and superficial, but with a veneer of respectability since it gives such an insider's view into turn-of-the-century Vienna and the major artistic characters of the day. There are some highly indiscreet entries about Mahler at the end. It's really a very strange perspective on a period of time and on people we might otherwise tend to romanticize and think of as larger than life.

Despite its strengths, I give the book four stars instead of five because of its one major weakness. It stops right where I wish it would start. Alma is about to embark on her life with Mahler, and I would love to have an insider's view into him. Also the overblown Romanticism with which Alma was still living her life here as a teenager can be a little tiring. She is full of Sturm and Drang, which goes over the top on occasion.

Still, the book is great and highly recommended for anyone with an interest in Mahler, Klimt or the general cultural goings-on of Vienna as the 19th century drew to a close.

Alma Mahler: the enigma !
Is it true that Alma claimed she was for decades the main authority of Mahler's works, values, character and his day-to-day actions and movements?
Is it true that, initially, and for many years, her various publications quickly became the central source of information and references for Mahler scholars and music-lovers alike?
Now we can know why, later, her accounts have been treated as unreliable, false, misleading and often impaired soundness? It is a fact that these imperfect accounts have nevertheless had a great influence upon several generations of music-lovers, hence the legend: " Alma's Problem""
How about what she wrote in her two books (memoirs) and their impact on Mahler studies'. (Why did she write two memoirs? - My Life, My Loves, and My Diaries 1898-1902) - Alma was a graceful, well-connected and influential woman who outlived her first husband by more than 50 years. (This reminds me of Cosima and Wagner. Cosima outlived Wagner by 47 years). How trustworthy is any story laid by women who outlive their notorious husbands for so long? Shouldn't they be given credence, though there may not have been full and final grain of truth in it?) - The greatest difficulty in writing one's memoirs is to keep a certain detachment at a time when passions were running high. True in her old age Alma wouldn't admit that her apprehensions with the past `'husband and wife"" days had been influenced with the benefit of hindsight when she now perceived the significance of events after they have occurred. Within 50 years Alma's reminiscences of past events couldn't pass without nostalgia or without an urging wistful desire to return, at least in written thoughts (modified and garbled), to a former time in one's life when young - I saw her picture, indeed she was very beautiful. Alma claims that Mahler 'feared women' and that their relationship was never really without danger, arguing that he had almost no sexual intercourse right up to his forties (he was 41 when they met). In fact, Mahler's long record of prior love affairs-- including a lengthy one with Anna von Mildenburg -- suggests that this was not the case. Whereas Alma's flirtation and first kiss was in her teens - as she boastfully said so. ".In her memoirs she must have been looking for an edge over Mahler. True?
Alma Mahler (then Schindler) played piano from childhood and in her memoirs reports that she first attempted composing at age 9. Was that false or true??(She knew that Mahler's parents had arranged piano lessons for him when he was six)
After Mahler's death, Alma did not immediately resume contact with the young architect Gropius. Between 1912 and 1914 she had a highly agitated affair with the artist Oskar Kokoschka, ((who created many works inspired by his relationship with Alma, including his famous painting: Bride of the Wind.)) Strangely enough, I read something like this: "" After Alma's departure from his life, Oskar Kokoschka notoriously ordered a custom life-size doll resembling her in details. Rumors say that he was seen at a local theater in Vienna holding the doll as his companion"" Could this have been true? Was he mentally insane? Was it plausible that Alma has had love affair with a mentally sick man that she did not recognize his flaws from the very beginning? Oscar must have been a most difficult partner, impetuous and mentally unbalanced. Such rumor must have made him the laughingstock for the intellectuals. How could Alma have been `attracted"" by such character? Gustav vs. Oscar (quite the opposite, yet she could sustain the dissimilarities! - Was she so eccentric?)
During the emotional instability in their marriage after Mahler's discovery of the affair (Alma's infatuation with Walter Gropius 1883-1969 - a German architect and founder of Bauhaus and is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of "modern" architecture)Mahler took a sincereinterest in Alma's musical compositions; completely regretting his earlier attitude when he dropped her talents out. (Was Mahler a capricious person - dictating his authority - as when he dropped Alma's talents in the past?) (Controversial-no doubt!)
Upon Mahler's endeavoring, and under his coaching and assistance, Alma prepared five of her songs for publication (they were issued in 1910, by Mahler's own publisher, Universal Edition). During this time, Mahler had one and unique consultation with Dr. Sigmund Freud. Why? Backlog of hard feelings I believe; they had watched with apprehension the gradual encirclement of the Jews or was it the curse of the ninth - Mahler knew he would not live long after his composition of the Ninth symphony that he completed in 1908 (perhaps!) If it were to seek guidance from Freud on Mahler's unsatisfactory relationship with his wife, this would sound absurd to me. Okay, but what was the outcome of such consultation?? Did they discuss the behaviors of Mahler's wife' or the anti-Semitic backlog of hard feelings? (Mahler was Jewish, so was Freud- Sigmund Freud knew his compatriots only too well - they give in to moral pressure) At the Opera, Mahler stubbornness in artistic perfection had created enemies, and he was subject to perpetual attacks from anti-Semitic circles in the press. His resignation from the Opera, 1907, was hardly unexpected. (Incidentally: Dreyfus affair divided France from the 1890s to the early 1900s and its repercussion continued until well after WWI)
The hard feelings of anti-Semitism must have adversely impacted his marital relationship with Alma? Initially, under Austro-Hungarian laws, no imperial posts were to be filled by Jews!!! Hence, in 1897 when he was 37, Mahler could not occupy the Directorship post at the Vienna Opera.
Something else, Mahler has had a clash with Brahms (Didn't he?)While at the university, he worked as a music teacher and made his first major attempt at composition with the cantata Das klagende Lied. The work was entered in a competition where the jury was headed by Johannes Brahms, but failed to win a prize. (Did he feel the brunt of Jewish curse?? It could be!!)
(In later years, however, Brahms was greatly impressed by Mahler's conducting of Don Giovanni.)

Time Travel Back to Old Vienna
Biographies can easily become subjective, as they rely upon the person telling the story.With diaries, we have almost a first-hand look at what the writer was thinking.

These diaries of Alma Mahler reveal the usual thoughts and feelings of a teenage girl and young woman.Alma desperately wishes to "be somebody," but she's not sure of how to achieve it.She spends years studying music, and practicing composition, but her works are simply fair or good, but not remarkable.

Then, she finds out what she's really outstanding at:attracting brilliant artists from all fields.This includes men such as Gustav Mahler, the composer, Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus architect, Franz Werfel, the novelist, Alexander von Zemlinsky, the composer, Gustav Klimt, the painter, Oskar Kokoschka, another painter, and many others.

Although her own art never achieved for her the fame she would have liked, perhaps she inspired all these other greats to go beyond what might have been their own limitations.There is a tendency, as you will see from photographs of Alma, to believe that men were attracted to her because of her spectacular beauty.But as you will see from these diaries, her personality must have also played a large role.She is coquettish, yet honest, and vacillates between between overestimating her successes, yet feeling humble about how much more she wishes she could be.

But what I believe you will find the best feature of this book, is seeing geniuses like Gustav Mahler and Walter Gropius, through the eyes of a young woman, who saw them up-close, as real, live men.It's like traveling back in time, for a close-up, personal look at these famous artists.

Creativity and Human Development
As a long-term diary writer myselfI was interested in Mahler-Werfel's diary and the manner in which the voice of the nineteen-year old woman is expressed (and the next two years of her life). Often when I reread my own writings I cringe at my ideas and philosophies when I was young and it takes some time for me to empathise with myself and regain a feeling for the person I was. One of the great features of these diaries is that theytruly express the voice of the nineteen-year old, they have not been edited to provide a more sophisticated voice.Perhaps Mahler-Werfel cringed a bit at herself in the way I do, perhaps that is why she never published these diaries during her lifetime, although we do know she gave it some consideration.But I think it is important that we heed the voice expressed in youthful writings because it reassociates us with the people we once were, and hopefully gives us greater empathy with the youth of today.
The most challenging aspect of these diaries is Mahler-Werfel's revelations of her growing sexual awareness with its contradictions, rapid changes of view, hesitancies, self criticism, and intemperate admissions.This is emotional and at times erotic writing.While we can allow Mahler-Werfel the licence to say what she wants about herself, it is less readily acceptable that she describes the behaviour of her partners - some of them quite historic figures.But this is the voice of youth going through very tumultuous personal times. Most people move through these times with varying degrees of ease and distress.Mahler-Werfel's writing reminded me of Wedekind's play `Springtime Awakening'.The awakening is not satisfactory for all - and is sometimes disastrous.For Mahler-Werfel we can only speculate.
Mahler-Werfel associated with many great artistic figures - in the times of these diaries there are Gustav Klimt, Alexander Zemlinsky and Gustav Mahler.Her reflections on these figures make them more alive than many histories. For her, they were living pulsing human beings and we see them in that way.
But was Mahler-Werfel extraordinary herself? I find it hard to decide.She obviously was not your average woman of the time, and yet it is possible to see her as just a spoilt rich girl who happened to have a pretty face.In her diaries she speaks of writing a song (lied) in a day, playing the whole of Tristan on the piano in an evening.And yet her musical examples noted in the diary are so poorly notated and often so inaccurate that it is hard not to think she had little genuine talent.Perhaps someone else completed the lieder from her tenuous musical ideas.But equally possible is that she was a real talent and, as popular history tells us, was suppressed by Mahler in their marriage.To me, however, there is another reading in that marriage to Mahler enabled her to renounce her musical ambitions, which she knew would never match those of Mahler no matter how hard she worked.To be fair about her musical notation however, we need to remember that all her writings border on the unreadable (perhaps that was deliberate - a sort of code?) although the single-minded line drawings she included are quite fine in a limited way (are they all of pretty Alma herself?).
Another way to judge her musical astuteness is her reviews and critiques of the many concerts she attended.At first look they seem to match the views of the day - wildly supportive of Wagner, dismissive of Bach, Saint-Saens and even Mozart. Was she just copying the view of the day? But then there are the changes of view - suddenly the opinion on Mozart changes, she starts to see some flat spots in Wagner.This does seem to suggest self-awareness in her musical views and even if it is selective acceptance of different critical opinion she shows a capability to make the change.There is one final thought that came to me as I read the diaries - perhaps her influence was so great (it certainly wasn't trivial) that she went some way to actually forming the critical view of the day.
I was immensely fascinated by these writings.If you are interested in human development and artistic creativity I recommend you do not overlook them.One thing is certain - Mahler-Werfel was an impassioned writer as a young woman.

Don�t you want to be her?
Alma Schindler - the goddess, the muse, the center of attention ... How did she manage that? How did she become an obsession of so many genial men, a thing of admiration of the Secessionist Vienna? But simply - she was a remarkable woman. And also, happened to be pretty and at the right place at the right time, born into an artistic family. It was said that she had a hearing defect. She would move closer to her companion in order to hear better. Men found that irresistible.

One would expect her to be vain and conceited. Through her diary, we entered her mind - she is none of that. At least, not more than any of us. She is an insecure girl. She has fears, doubts about herself, she loves passionately... Alas, her anti-Semitic feelings are shocking. At first, she is quite tolerant and objects anti-Semitic sentiments. Then she changes. One can only find the reason in propaganda being already pretty aggressive. She lives among Jewish families, loves Jewish men and marries two of them. Why then? And how did it happen that she married Mahler so quickly?

"Please God, give me some great mission, give me something great to do!" She could have been quite a good artist. Her drawings show certain talent that could have been developed into something much more. She could have taken drawing classes and maybe, her mission would have been even greater. But she pursued music even though it
seemedthat she lacked the talent - not one of her opera impressions on the notepaper correspond to the real score.She never composed a great opera she dreamed of. But she left her mark in the history of arts and love.

This book is a great document. The correspondence between the authors just adds to the value. I only wish there were more photos of Alma as well as letters that she received. It would have been nice to read passionate words of her admirers. At the end, instead of an epilogue, there should have been a short biography. And a word of two about her sisters and mother would have been valuable.What happened to her sister Maria? I guess I need to start searching. ... Read more

Product Description
Today Gustav Mahler's music is more popular than ever, yet few are aware of its roots in German literary and cultural history in general, and in fin-de-siècle Viennese culture in particular. Taking as its point of departure the many references to literature, philosophy, and the visual arts that Mahler uses to illustrate the meaning of his music, Reading Mahler helps audiences, critics, and those interested in musical and cultural history understand influences on Mahler's music and thinking that may have been self-evident to middle-class Viennese a hundred years ago but are much more obscure today. It shows that Mahler's oeuvre, despite its reliance on texts and images from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is far more indebted to fin-de-siècle modernism and to an eclectic, proto-avantgardist agenda than has been previously realized. Furthermore, Reading Mahler is the first book to make Mahler's position within German-Jewish culture its analytical center. It also probes Mahler's problematic but often overlooked relationship with the musical and textual legacy of Richard Wagner. By integrating newer approaches in humanistic research - cultural studies, gender studies, and Jewish studies - Reading Mahler exposes the composer's critical view of German cultural history and offers a new understanding of his music. ... Read more