Henry-Louis de La Grange - Böcker

Gustav Mahler was one of the supremely gifted musicians of his generation. His contemporaries came to know him as a composer of startling originality whose greatest successes with the public never failed to provoke controversy among the critics. As a conductor, his relentless pursuit of perfection was sometimes viewed as tyrannical by the singers and musicians who came under his baton. Professor Henry-Louis de La Grange has devoted over thirty years of painstaking resarch to this study of Mahler's life and works. His biography, ultimately to be completed in four volumes, is drawn from a vast archive of documents, autographs, and pictures, assembled by La Grange at the Bibliotheque Musicale Gustav Mahler, Paris.This second volume covers the years 1897-1904, when the focus shifts to Vienna. It opens with Mahler's triumphant debut as director of the Vienna Court Opera, and follows with the revolution he wrought there in standards of performance and, with the Secession painter Alfred Roller, in scenic representation. An account is also given of Mahler's story and brief engagement as conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Concerts, following Richter's resignation in 1989. La Grange depicts the brilliant society of pre-war Vienna, then the centre of the intellectual and artistic world; the extraordinary range of artists among whom Mahler lived and worked included the composers Dvorak, Gustave Charpentier, Richard Strauss, Zemlinsky, and Schoenberg and his two disciples, Berg and Webern; the painters architects and decorators of the Secession with Klmit at their head; the writers Hauptmann, Dehmel, Hofmannsthal, and Schnitzler. There he also met Alma Schindler, 'the most beautiful woman in Vienna', and La Grange tells the story of their engagement and marriage in 1902 and the early years of their tempestuous relationship. As his fame spread throughout Europe, Mahler travelled with his music to Germany, Russia, Holland, Poland, and Belguim, meeting many other leading musicians of his day, including Pfitzner, Mengelberg, Diepenbrock, Oskar Fried, and many others.During this period Mahler wrote some of his best-loved works, including the fourth and Fifth Symphonies, and the three orchestral song-cyles and collections - the Wunderhorn -, Ruckert-, and Kindertotenlieder. For each of these works La Grange provides full notes and analytical descriptions. Scrupulously researched, richly documented, this is a study worthy of the extraordinary artistic achievement of Gustav Mahler's Vienna years.

Gustav Mahler was one of the supremely gifted musicians of his generation. His contemporaries came to know him as a composer of startling originality whose greatest successes with the public never failed to provoke controversy among the critics. As a conductor, his relentless pursuit of perfection was sometimes viewed as tyrannical by the singers and musicians who came under his baton. Professor Henry-Louis de La Grange has devoted over thirty years of painstaking research to this study of Mahlers life and works. His biography, ultimately to be completed in four volumes, is drawn from a vast archive of documents, autographs, and pictures, assembled by La Grange at the Bibliothèque Musicale Gustav Mahler, Paris. This third volume covers the years 1904-1907 and shows Mahler in his final years at the Hofoper coping with the rival demands on his energy and creative powers of the Opera on the one hand and his continuing struggle for recognition as a composer in his own right on the other. The first signs of marital difficulties with Alma emerge. Mahlers trials culminate in 1907 with the death of Putzi, his eldest daughter, a terminal crisis at the Opera which makes him decide to leave Vienna, and the alarming diagnosis by the doctors of a cardiac deficiency. True to life portraits are drawn of Mahler the human being, the family man, and the composer, as well as the administrator, producer, and conductor at the Vienna Opera. Innumerable testimonies and anecdotes throw new light on the many aspects of Mahler's complex personality.

Gustav Mahler: Letters to his Wife is undoubtedly the best way to understand Mahler as a man and as a composer: in his own words, intimately detailing his inner world to his wife, Alma.'Are Collected Letters a superior form of biography? When as numerous and meticulously edited as these of Gustav Mahler, when they provide a time capsule ride back to the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the answer must be yes . . . This remarkable book is unputdownable, even for a non-Mahlerite.' Literary Review 'The letters are linked by a commentary that makes the volume both an easy and gripping read . . . There is passion in this book to scald the hand.' Sunday Times'A vivid and telling portrayal of Mahler's personality in his voice.' Times Literary Supplement