Book 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 (2)

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 in the front section, 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