| Description |
x, 766 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Note |
"Originally published under the title Gustav Mahler : der fremde Vertraute"--Title page verso. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [709]-739) and index. |
| Summary |
Fischer explores Mahler's early life, his relationship to literature, his achievements as a conductor in Vienna and New York, his unhappy marriage, and his work with the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic in his later years. He also illustrates why Mahler is a prime example of artistic idealism worn down by Austrian anti-Semitism and American commercialism. |
| Contents |
What did Mahler look like?: an attempt at a description -- Small steps: Kalischt and Iglau (1860-75) -- Studies in Vienna (1875-80) -- Summer conductor: Bad Hall (1880) -- Emotional ups and downs in Laibach (1881-2) -- For the last time in the provinces: Olmütz (1882-3) -- Presentiment and a new departure: Kassel (1883-5) -- Avid reader: Mahler and literature -- Becoming Mahler: Prague (1885-6) -- First symphony -- Life's vicissitudes: Leipzig (1886-8) -- Notes on Mahler's songs -- Lowland dreams: Budapest (1888-91) -- Conductor -- Second symphony -- Self-realization: Hamburg (1891-7) -- Jewishness and identity -- Third symphony -- God of the southern climes: Vienna (1897-1901) -- Mahler's illnesses: a pathographical sketch -- Fourth symphony -- Vienna in 1900: Alma as a young woman (1901-3) -- Fifth symphony -- "Nothing is lost to you": faith and philosophy -- Sixth symphony -- Opera reform, early years of marriage, Mahler's compositional method (1903-5) -- Seventh symphony -- Administrator, contemporaries, signs of crisis (1905-7) -- Eighth symphony -- Annus terribilis (1907) -- Das Lied von der Erde -- Starting afresh: New York (1908-11) -- Ninth symphony -- Crisis and culmination (1910) -- Fragmentary tenth symphony -- "My heart is weary": the farewell -- Mahler and posterity. |
| Summary |
A best seller when first published in Germany in 2003, Jens Malte Fischer's Gustav Mahler has been lauded by scholars as a landmark work. He draws on important primary resources -- some unavailable to previous biographers -- and sets in narrative context the extensive correspondence between Mahler and his wife, Alma; Alma Mahler's diaries; and the memoirs of Natalie Bauer-Lechner, a viola player and close friend of Mahler, whose private journals provide insight into the composer's personal and professional lives and his creative process. Fischer explores Mahler's early life, his relationship to literature, his achievements as a conductor in Vienna and New York, his unhappy marriage, and his work with the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic in his later years. He also illustrates why Mahler is a prime example of artistic idealism worn down by Austrian anti-Semitism and American commercialism. Gustav Mahler is the best-sourced and most balanced biography available about the composer, a nuanced and intriguing portrait of his dramatic life set against the backdrop of early 20th century America and fin de siècle Europe. --From publisher information. |
| Subject |
Mahler, Gustav, 1860-1911.
|
|
Mahler, Gustav, 1860-1911. (OCoLC)fst00055671
|
|
Composers -- Austria -- Biography.
|
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Composers. (OCoLC)fst00871620
|
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Austria. (OCoLC)fst01204901
|
| Genre/Form |
Biography. (OCoLC)fst01423686
|
| Added Title |
Gustav Mahler. English
|
| ISBN |
9780300134445 cloth alkaline paper |
|
0300134444 cloth alkaline paper |
|
