Gustav Mahler

by Jens Malte Fischer

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.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, History, Classical Music, Germany, Biography Memoir

766 pages, Hardcover

First published August 9, 2003

Reviews

[Dmitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Do you have to be there in person when you become immortal?" - Mahler on why he didn't do more to make his works better known

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If you are inclined towards a 700 page book on the composer Gustav Mahler this might be the one to read. Author Jens Malte Fischer, an Austrian theater historian, has combed through decades of correspondence between Mahler, wife Alma, friends and colleagues to frame the portrait. A synthesis of biographical and topical studies span his lifetime and spotlight his world. In addition to the chronological account there are chapters on his songs, symphonies, conducting, reading, spirituality, philosophy, marriage, illness and legacy. Fischer is a musicologist and perhaps a musician but his analysis of Mahler's music is from a cultural angle rather than a technical one. This could be a blessing or curse based on your interests.

Born in a Bohemian village in 1860, Mahler grew up in a small provincial city. He was an early arrival in a large Jewish family of modest means. At a young age he revealed a gift of musical genius. He left home at fifteen to study piano at the Vienna conservatory, but his true love was composing, and he had a great talent for conducting. After five years he began to lead local orchestras, quickly gaining positions in Prague, Leipzig, Budapest and Hamburg. He returned to Vienna in 1897 to direct the Court Opera and Philharmonic. After 11 years and many triumphs, systemic racism and professional envy in others drove him to the Met and NY Philharmonic. There he had to compete with Toscanini, which was no easy task. He died in Vienna in 1911.

Fischer weaves in a contemporary history of the Austro-Hungarian empire. After Austria's war with Prussia in 1866, a dual monarchy was formed from a multi-ethnic alliance. Cultural tensions led to German nationalism in the west and Hungarian in the east. Johann Strauss II's 1874 opera 'Die Fledermaus' reflected a cultural dissolution, where drunk revelers cheat on unaware spouses. The eclectic Ringstrasse architecture was begun in 1875, and populated by a shallow minded bourgeoisie. Liberals who aided Jewish assimilation fell from power in 1879, with Christian Socialists and Pan-Germans replacing them. An uneasy balance persisted until WWI. In 1897 Mahler was a peripheral member of the fin-de-siecle Vienna Secession art movement.

Fischer explores the 'War of the Romantics', between the 'New German School' led by Liszt and Wagner, influenced by Gluck and Berlioz. They were rivals to a conservative faction of Schumann, Brahms and Mendelssohn, adherents of the 'Viennese School' of Hayden, Mozart and Beethoven. Mahler was an admirer of Wagner, despite anti-semitic diatribes, and a champion of his operas. In 1903 Mahler began his important opera reforms, collaborating with the Secession artist Alfred Roller to produce a level of integrated stage design not seen before. It was inspired by an unachieved Wagnerian concept for a 'total art' integration of music and drama. Mahler in turn influenced the development of Shostakovich and Schoenberg's '2nd Viennese School'.

Mahler loved reading and books which infused his music with poetry and philosophy. Goethe and the Aristotelian concept of entelechy, where life is an everlasting force for perfection, and aspects of Leibniz's monadism, a theory of indivisible metaphysical units, were Romantic responses to the distinct atoms of Enlightenment materialism. Mahler was Jewish by birth and Christian by conversion, but he was more drawn to esoteric spiritual beliefs. His early songs were based on folk poetry and fairy tales, his middle period on settings for poems by Friedrich Ruckert, and his late 'Das Lied von der Erde' on the ancient Chinese poetry of Li Bai and Wang Wei. His numbered symphonies have themes of nature, love and death, although their meanings have been widely disputed.

Mahler had a troubling habit of falling in love with his soprano soloists, and awkward ways of extricating himself from the affairs. One early love was Anna von Mildenberg, a virtuoso singer of the time. He married Alma Schindler, a beautiful and young socialite daughter of a famous painter. She went on to betray him in his darkest hour with the architect Walter Gropius. A key to the discord was Mahler's suppression of her musical aspirations. He had rigorous and uncompromising professional standards often rushing the stage, rearranging players and relieving performers during rehearsals. Mahler had congenital physical frailties, and unconfirmed psychosomatic illnesses. These were concerns, but it was heart disease that led to his death at 51.

I often have a dream, related to Mahler's anxiety about his compositions being performed and received well. In the dream I am standing with modern recordings of his works, asking what he thinks of each of them once he has listened. Would he prefer his disciple Bruno Walter to his friend Willem Mengelberg or later recordings by Klemperer, Horenstein, Barbirolli and Bernstein? Would he be happy to know that his work had not been in vain? As he said: "My sixth will pose riddles that only a generation who know my first five may hope to solve." But later he warned "How long do works survive? Fifty years? Then come other composers, another time, another taste, other works." Perhaps he made music that will last far beyond his greatest hopes.

This book was written in German and translated to English. In spite of somewhat labored prose it demonstrates well the level of learning in Central Europe. Fischer isn't afraid to delve into amateur psychology, speculating on Mahler's sex life and sessions with Sigmund Freud. I was looking for a more succinct account like those of Shostakovich by Volkov or Wagner by Callow, but found this analysis much better. It's a challenging and rewarding work although labyrinthine in it's structure. The book was a 2003 best seller in Germany, a matter of no small wonder to me. If it is still not enough there is La Grange's 3600 page tetralogy lurking in the shadows, yet I would not dare to go there.

[Stian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very comprehensive and extremely fascinating portrait of one of my favourite composers: Gustav Mahler – or, as Debussy dismissively and purposefully mispronounced it, Gustav Mahleur. At the very start of the book there is a quote from Goethe, about the “chief goal of biography”, which “appears to be this:”

To present the subject in his temporal circumstances, to show how these both hinder and help him, how he uses them to construct his view of man and the world, and how he, providing he is an artist, poet, or author, mirrors them again for others.

This is precisely what Fischer attempts to do in this quite enormous tome of a biography – it is just over 700 pages long. It begins with an attempt at a description of the man himself: he moved at an “allegro furioso”; others having big problems keeping up with the stout and energised man, his “chin protruding like a battering ram and his head thrown back” – for those with interest in the topic this will surely conjure up images of Beethoven’s gait as well. He was similar to Beethoven in other respects too: he would not care much for his clothes if they were torn: “For weeks on end he could wander around with the lining of his coat torn, the state of disrepair being a matter of total indifference to him.” Though, on one important matter he differs from the greatest of them all: in this apparent carelessness, he was not careless about his physical cleanliness and overall health, and towards the end of his life, after the diagnosis of a weak heart in 1907, he was borderline hypochondriac. With that said, Mahler was in fact like Beethoven in that he was riddled and plagued with illnesses of various degrees of severity, and, like Beethoven, he more or less worked through them in a way that is easy to characterise as "heroic."

But I’m meandering! The book follows Mahler from his “small steps” in Kalischt and Iglau, from his birth in 1860, then to his studies in Vienna. He is portrayed as a relatively shy but clearly musically talented young boy, utterly enthralled and captivated by the military marching bands that would on occasion pass by close to his childhood home. For those familiar with Mahler’s music, this influence can clearly be heard in his music. Unfortunately the sources from this period of Mahler’s life are scant, and the author admits as much. Thus, the most prominent part of the book is from the 1890s and onwards – from his time in Hamburg from 1891 to 1897, where he was on a road of self-realization, until his rather premature death in 1911, and with a particular focus naturally falling on his 10 years as director of the Vienna Court Opera, where he introduced a number of changes that can be felt today – Mahler refused entry for latecomers, which was not the custom at the time, and he also insisted on dimming the lights, which was also not entirely common at the time.

There is one aspect of Mahler that Fischer is very careful to focus on and point out, namely, that he was one of the world’s most foremost and widely appreciated conductors. This is an aspect of him that is easy to overlook, because we now appreciate his own compositions to such a large degree. But, his own music was largely misunderstood or under-appreciated in his own time, with only a relatively small minority championing it, whereas the majority tended towards criticism and oftentimes sheer bewilderment. It was only with the Mahler renaissance in the 60s and 70s that he came into the foray as a composer again. (However, not without detractors: look only at the prominent conductors who never really liked Mahler: Karl Böhm, Eugen Jochum, Carlos Kleiber (unfortunately!), Günter Wand, and it was only after the Mahler renaissance that Karajan bothered with Mahler.) (It is interesting to note that many of those conductors who are “anti-Mahler” often tend to be very pro-Bruckner – perhaps the most useful example being Barenboim, who struggled to come to terms with Mahler but adores Bruckner.) Here it should also be noted that another important aspect of the book is Mahler’s Jewishness, and discussions surrounding it. Vienna was very much a hotbed for anti-Semitism at the time of his appointment (indeed he converted to Catholicism to try to please people), and Mahler was hounded and chased by anti-Semites essentially all his life – and later, too. Here’s an entry on Mahler from a book named Musical ABC of Jews, from 1935, over 20 years after his death:

He is generally regarded as the typical representative of the noisy hooligans; he wrote monstrous works for the concert hall such as the ‘Symphony of a Thousand' [his 8th] whose mass of instruments serves only to cover up its pitiful lack of melodies and desolation. By always hankering after empty effects, his works are as quintessentially Jewish as his ancestry. He came from a Jewish brandy bar and had himself baptised only later in Vienna.

This sort of stuff was common for him, but was much more virulent and aggressive when he was alive. The book spends quite some time on this topic, devoting a whole chapter to the question of “Jewishness and Identity”, where Mahler’s own complicated views on the topic are examined.

Mahler was also an extremely strict and extremely demanding conductor, and Fischer recounts a few stories of him tormenting his poor players, many of whom, if not most, feared the little man standing with the baton in hand at the podium more than they feared the Devil himself. Moreover, Fischer tells of Mahler’s rather unfortunate habit of getting romantically involved with the lead singers he hired for his operas. And, of course, after their marriage, the book is dominated by the rather unhappy marriage between Alma and Gustav – culminating in Mahler’s complete heartbreak upon discovering that Alma was unfaithful to him towards the very end of his life. (In poetic justice, in a way, Alma, after Mahler’s death, went to be with the man with whom she was unfaithful, and the partnership ended in disaster. Alma would later write that Gustav was the only man she truly loved, and all the other men in her life (and they were many) would pale and shrink to artistic midgets compared to the great Gustav.)

This would perhaps have been a 5-star book for me, but for a few nit-picks: first, I wish Fischer had spared the reader of the often too psychoanalytical parts pertaining to Mahler, particularly in regard to his marriage to Alma. The gist of it was this, in the parlance of our time: Alma had daddy issues; Mahler had mommy issues. Whenever he started to dabble in paragraphs like that I immediately felt a strong urge to yawn. Second, the chapters on Mahler’s symphonies are kind of lacking; the chapters are awfully short (compared with the gigantic proportions of most of his symphonies), and a lot of the time only say things like, “here it is as if we follow the hero to the top of the mountain after a tiresome and weary climb…” etc. Perhaps I was spoiled with Swafford’s extremely detailed look at Beethoven’s works in his biography, Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph, but I nonetheless found those chapters a little unsatisfactory. And third, I noticed that on many, many occasions Fischer tended to write that “this was merely the exception that proved the rule,” which in general is a phrase I hate, and is not particularly useful in a biography especially. Finally, the book is so detailed that sometimes it goes a bit overboard: there were a few moments where I caught myself thinking why he included this or that, because it did not really add to my understanding of Mahler at all, regardless of how interesting the factoids were on their own. In other words, the book could probably have been 100 or 200 pages shorter.

But, in the end, an extremely fascinating look into a man I now admire even more than I did at the outset. If you have not already, I would advise you to dive into his music and especially his symphonies, because they are so tremendously rich and fascinating, suffused with philosophical ideas (that Fischer also writes a lot about in the book, by the way!) and feelings for human suffering and tragedy and love and what have you. At the time of writing this review, Mahler stands as the greatest composer I know, only overshadowed by one man – Beethoven. But then again, who does not stand in the shadow of Beethoven?

[Olaf Leeuwis · Rating 4 out of 5]

In doubt between a 3.5, 4 or 4.5 star review. It's an immense work containing tons of information on his life and his idiosyncracies and he dutifully avoids and sweeps away all the usual clichés about Mahler. The descriptions of his symphonies ought to have been longer in my opinion, especially when relating a symphony to a stage in his life, but perhaps the scope of a biography is limited to a life and doesn't include a thorough technical description of his music. I enjoyed the ride though!

[Frank McAdam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always considered Gustav Mahler to have been, quite simply, the greatest composer since Beethoven. As a tireless innovator who reinvented the entire concept of symphonic music, he was a giant who towered over the twentieth century. It was he, and not Wagner, who was the true herald of "new music." As such, he was the inspiration behind the Second Viennese School and even now exerts a huge influence on contemporary composers. He well deserves then the sympathetic and comprehensive biography that has been given him by Jens Malte Fischer in an excellent English translation by Stewart Spencer.

While today he is known primarily as a composer, during his own lifetime Mahler was lauded as the world's greatest conductor. Over the course of seven hundred pages of erudite and well written text, Fischer describes the progress of Mahler's career from his earliest positions in Kassel, Prague, Leipzig, Budapest and Hamburg until finally he was appointed Music Director of the Vienna Court Opera, then universally acknowledged as the world's foremost opera company. It was there that he took up the challenge of Wagner's gesamtkunstwerk and with the assistance of stage and costume designer Alfred Roller introduced a series of revolutionary reforms, many of whose visual elements were taken from the Viennese Secession, in the staging of operatic works. Few audiences realize how many facets seen in current productions were first put onstage by Mahler and Roller. Fischer then follows this up by paying particular attention to the composer's years in New York City.

Interspersed with the chapters that follow Mahler's conducting career and the intrigues he was forced to deal with at each stop along the way are shorter episodes that chronicle the composition of the symphonies during the summer interludes when he was freed from conducting and administrative duties. These sections provide thorough analyses that are most helpful to the non-musician seeking to better understand the scope of Mahler's accomplishments. One factor that is continually brought home is the enormous impact Nature had on Mahler's consciousness and the manner in which he incoporated its aural manifestations into his work. In a sense, natural phenomena served as much an inspiration for Mahler as folk music (which is notably absent in Mahler's compositions) did for Bartók.

In addition, there is a long chapter entitled "Mahler's Illnesses: A Pathological Sketch" that investigates the extensive health problems that plagued the composer throughout his lifetime and finally led to his tragic death from endocarditis at only age 51. It would be difficult to fully understand Mahler's life without an examination of these illnesses that were so pervasive that they formed part of his character.

Another chapter, "Jewishness and Identity," is essential to understanding Mahler's own problematical view of his Jewish heritage. The virulent anti-Semitism that Mahler encountered throughout his career and that finally forced him to leave Vienna at the height of his powers is almost unimaginable today. That he accepted this heavy burden without rancor says much for his character, but at the same time this revolting anti-Semitism was an inescapable trial for any Jew living in Europe, particularly Austria, at the turn of the twentieth century. Reading of the horrors Jews were forced to endure in so "civilized" a city fundamentally changed my view of Secession-era Vienna.

As for Alma, I think Fischer's treatment is fair. True, she was fatuous and at times dishonest, but it must be remembered that she was a product of her times. Women in 1900 Vienna were forced to lead such stifling existences that it would be strange indeed if these conditions did not to some extent warp their personalities. To his credit, Fischer does not attempt to absolve Mahler himself of all blame for the failure of his marriage. It was his failing libido and almost total absorption in his work that led inexorably to Alma's affair with Gropius. Before faulting Mahler, however, for marrying someone so many years younger, one has to sympathize with his desire to join his life with that of a woman who was not only from the most elite social circles but also "the most beautiful young woman in Vienna." Mahler was, after all, only human and as susceptible to a mid-life crisis as any other man.

Finally, Mahler, whose works generally went unappreciated during his lifetime, serves as an inspiration for all creative artists who have gone unrecognized. In the twenty-first century his claim that his music would best be understood by future generations has now been validated beyond his wildest expectations. Every struggling artist should then take consolation from his famous remark when asked why he did not do more to promote his works: "Do you have to be there in person when you become immortal? Sooner or later, they themselves [his musical works] will do whatever is necessary."

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Es gibt auch die Wunde Mahler; sie will und wird sich nicht schließen, solange es eine menschliche Gesellschaft gibt, die der Versöhnung ermangelt. Von diesem Mangel spricht Mahlers Musik so deutlich wie kaum eine Zweite.“

(“There is also the Mahler wound; it won’t and will not heal as long as existing human society fails to reconcile with itself. Mahler’s music speaks so clearly to this deficiency, as no other can.”)

As I came to the conclusion of this exceptional biography of Gustav Mahler, I couldn’t help but ponder his age at his death, just short of his 51st birthday. Had he lived as long as his much younger wife, Alma – who, try as Fischer might, can’t be turned into a good person – he would have died in 1945 at age 85. Theoretically, a little more than 100% of additional time, as compared to his “professional” life, which began around the age of 18. What might that time have brought? Mahler didn’t live to see either World War, Nazis, or his physical world destroyed and family ripped apart. Perhaps he would have been long in the United States already, watching from afar. But that probably leaves out as many as ten symphonies, perhaps a few less, and some song cycles of more than 30 years of musical genius informed by experiences he possibly couldn’t have imagined – who could? – when he died in 1911.

In the immediate aftermath of his death, despite the seminal works he had written, three of which he would never hear played, Mahler was less known as a composer, except by insiders and those familiar with the higher echelons of composing, and much more so as a conductor…of opera music. Professionally, he moved quickly from a local child prodigy in Bohemia, near the Moravian border, to student at one of the top music schools in the world in Vienna, to some stops along the way in Slovenia, Prague, Leipzig and Kassel, before landing his first big in Hamburg by the early 1890s, remaining there for years while he guest-conducted throughout Europe and, despite personal changes in belief, could never shake the pervasive anti-Semitism of his time as it both limited and inspired his work. He took on a performing schedule and scope that today’s maestros take years to fulfill, before getting into a three-month-a-year vacation, with extensive times in the Alps, to write for himself.

Fischer is as judicious as he can be, perhaps too much for some, too interpretive for others, to find a perfect balance for someone like me who is enamored with Mahler’s music and wants to learn and understand more. It does not devolve into a discussion of his music requiring a musical education nor does it get bogged down in discussions about his life. Fischer makes uses of access to files, letters, and secondary literature to point out the inconsistencies of Mahler’s life while putting them within the context of his time.

So in addition to Mahler’s life, we learn about late 19th Century Vienna, it’s transition toward becoming an artistic Mecca at the turn of the century, the politics of conducting on the European circuit, Mahler’s distinctions between Italian and “Germanic” opera which rested on an adoration of Wagner, and the various pressures it imposed on his life. Even when he knew he would die relatively soon – of an angina that is somewhat easy to treat today, but was not treatable then – music was his only outlet, much to the benefit of posterity. Should you have been moved by at least two hearings of Mahler pieces in full, this might be a book for you. I see that the English translation by Yale is significantly shorter than the original German, so I cannot vouch for the quality of translation.

[Frank Hering · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 700+ page biography may seem scary, but Fischer's book on Mahler contains such interesting information that he discusses in a thoughtful manner that you will want to keep reading. Fischer and his translator combine to create a book that is highly readable by those who have at least some basic knowledge of Mahler and his symphonies. In addition to giving a chronological account of Mahler's life, Fischer has thematic chapters, such as one on Mahler's relationship to Judaism and another on his religious/spiritual beliefs; social history chapters, on such topics as mid-century Vienna, turn-of-the-century Vienna and its artistic movements, and anti-Semitism; portraits of composers and conductors who interacted with and supported Mahler's symphonies, including Bruno Walter, Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Willem Mengelberg, Richard Strauss (as well as intellectuals such as Theodore Adorno); Mahler's intellectual interests in Goethe, Wagner, Dostoevsky; etc. Since Mahler was known for his conducting (perhaps the second-best conductor of his era) much more than for his composing (his symphonies were usually not well received), much of the middle of the book talks about his rapid progression from smaller opera houses to his coveted positions as Musical Director of the Vienna State Opera and then as Principal Conductor for the Metropolitan Opera in New York. But about equal weight is given to the summers, which was when he did his composing, and to discussions and interpretations of each of his symphonies. Finally, while I can't judge the accuracy of the translation from German, I can say that the text reads very well; you wouldn't know it was a translation. So, if you have a strong interest in Mahler's music and want to know more about the man who created it, you'll want to read this book. And keep your Mahler recordings with you, as you'll want to listen to them in order as you progress through the book. Some of the historical recordings that Fischer mentions can be found in excellent remasterings on the Pristine Classical site.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was für ein umfassemdes Werk! Ohne Anhänge 820 Seiten, klein und eng bedruckt.(immerhin habe ich es geschafft, das Buch noch im Januar 2025 zu Ende zu lesen, bevor wir am 4. Februar die Aufführung Mahlers 6. Sinfonie im Staatstheater Karlsruhe selbst live erleben werden).
Zunächst ist es unfassbar, welche Dichte von Informationen und Material über eine Person zusammengetragen werden kann. Zum Glück haben Mahler selbst und viele in seiner Umgebung viele Briefe geschrieben, von denen sehr viele erhalten und publiziert wurden. Das wäre so, wie zukünftige jemand auf alle E-Mails und WhatsApp und sonstigen sozialen Nachrichten und Äußerungen über eine Person zurückgreifen könnte. Hinzu kommt natürlich, dass sich viele Personen auch später bemüßigt fühlten, ihre Erinnerung an diese bekannte Person festzuhalten.
Das Buch ist schwere Kost, wartet mit vielen neuen Fremdwörtern und einigen musikalischen Fachwissen auf, dass sich mir nicht immer erschlossen hat. Aber es stellt das Leben Mahlers in den großen Zusammenhang der jeweiligen historischen Umgebung, z.B das Wien der K&K-Monarchie in der zweiten Hälfte des 19.Jahrhunderts mit (noch) relativ liberalen Einstellungen gerade in der Kultur (Sezession), aber schon mit deren beginnenden Verknöcherung und dem ständig latenten, stärker werdenden Antisemitismus.
Für mich insgesamt ein faszinierender Einblick in diese Zeit bis 1910, die Welt der Musikkultur und ihre Organisationen, aber auch in die Musik selbst. Es hat sich gelohnt durchzuhalten.

[Jeff Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book in 2016 and it has looked at me from its vantage point on a shelf for 6 years until, with some trepidation, I took it down and dared to open it.

Mahler has been a constant in my life for nearly 30 years. Somewhat oddly, if my reading of this extraordinary biography is to be believed, my interest was centred on the 5th and 6th Symphonies, which are, from what I now understand, to be other than Mahler favourites. To me, they have been saviours.

When my wife became ill in 1995 and was in hospital for 9 months, I played these symphonies often on my drive home from the hospital. Although the 6th, with its 3 beats of the drum believed to be 3 disasters in Mahler's life, is supposed to more closely align to my feelings at the time, both Symphonies held me together and allowed my drive home, where my two young children were, to be safely fulfilled.

Perhaps it was such feelings that caused me to delay my reading of this wondrous account of the genius of Gustav Mahler. Perhaps it was its length that I found daunting. At 706 pages, it is literally a heavy read and my arm often ached from extensive lifting. What might also have intrigued me about reading the book was my reading of Colm Toibin's excellent "The Magician", his novel about Thomas Mann. Mann's life was interestingly linked to Mahler's, who he met and who Fischer mentions giving Mahler a copy of one of his books after seing Mahler conduct. Mann also knew Mahler's wife, Alma, who outlived the composer by over 50 years! Mahler's adagietto from his 6th Symphony was, much later, used as the music for Visconti's movie, Death in Venice, based on one of Mann's books. Fischer, who admires the film, is rightly scathing about the specific recording of the music used in the movie.

Nonetheless, I have been well rewarded for Fischer's book is an extraordinary one in which not just the life of a unique musical genius is brilliantly brought before the reader, but great insights into the mind of the man are attempted and, in the main, successfully.

Mahler was a conflicted genius. There is no school of Mahler music but he bestrode the music of the world in a worldly way by taking the sounds of all the world around him and presenting them to an audience. He did not just write music but painted extraordinary scenes through it: music that demanded larger and larger orchestras within larger and larger theatres. Much of his music also includes voices which enrich and extend the value he seeks.

Of course, Mahler was not 'just' a composer but was also a brilliant conductor of opera as well as symphonies and other instrumental works. It is this complex mixture of life, together with his personal relationships (so many and so intricate) that Fischer portrays so well along with the link to his background as a Jew (and the subject of continuous anti-semitism) and as a Moravian / Austrian / german speaker in a the widest of worlds.

This was an exhilarating work!

Mahler died when just 51. Fischer has given him the

[James Euclid · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eines der besten Kapitel beschäftigt sich mit dem Verhältnis Mahlers zum Judentum. Der Schluss wird gezogen, dass es nicht greifbar ist, schon gar nicht in seiner Musik, wo jüdische Traditionen nicht zu finden sind. Dass sich Mahler wohl kaum als Jude begriffen hätte, wenn es nicht immer wieder von außen an ihn herangetragen worden wäre, dass er einer ist. Nur ex negativo ist es irgendwie und kaum zu erahnen, wie es den Komponisten beeinflusste.
Auf Fischer Biographie übertragen ist es ganz ähnlich. Fischer sammelt jede Menge an. Er erzählt aus Mahlers Leben, über seine Freunde und Verwandten, über Böhmen, Wien, New York, über die Zeit der Jahrhundertwende, die damalige Musikkultur. Er bietet einen weiten Überblick und trotzdem fühlt es sich an, als wären wir dem Mann Mahler und seiner Musik kaum nähergekommen. Vll. meint Fischer das ja mit dem Untertitel – Mahler ist uns nach der Lektüre vertraut, aber immer noch fremd, ohne dass auf diesen toten Winkel eingegangen worden wäre.
Das Problem ist, dass Fischer von einer Position des Auskennens doziert. Er ordnet nüchtern ein und versucht, die reißerischen Klischees mancher Mahler Biographien zu umgehen, nur gefällt er sich einen Tick zu sehr darin, uns alles vorkauen „zu müssen“. Sänger, Musiker und Persönlichkeiten zählt er mit einem Timbre auf, die uns vermitteln, wie sehr er in der Szene aufgeht. Er wiederholt die einen Dinge penetrant und immer wieder – ich kann nun nachts geweckt werden, und wenn mir jemand sagt, dass Mahler als Wiener Operndirektor lange Zeit eine gute Presse bekam, weiß ich sofort anzumerken, dass davon natürlich die antisemitischen Zeitungen auszunehmen sind –, während er jedes Mal, wenn er an der Schwelle dazu steht, näher auf die Musik einzugehen, darauf verweist, dass dazu hier kein Platz sei. Auch die Kapitel zu den einzelnen Symphonien (Ausnahme bleiben am ehesten 4.–7.) schaffen es oft nicht, diese griffig zu vermitteln. Stattdessen redet er voller Selbstsicherheit darüber, dass er weiß, wovon er redet, drum herum.
Immer wieder ringt er auch mit dem Antisemitismus Alma Mahlers. In seinen Versuchen sich ihr fair und ausgewogen zu nähern, macht er sie immer wieder und hier besonders zum dummen Papageien, die die Juden nicht systematisch hasst, sondern die nur nachplappert … nur um das System direkt nachzuschieben: Sobald ihr jemand/etwas nicht passt, ist er/sie/es jüdisch. Fischer weiß sichtlich sehr viel und bringt es in seinem Buch unter, aber ich werde das Gefühl nicht los, dass er an seinem Thema allzu oft scheitert.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Or, master musicians behaving badly.

Mahler is portrayed here as an irascible genius whose musical gifts eclipse his social skills. The author does a fine job setting the story amidst the history and social context - think anti-semitism of the day. The story of Mahler's rise as a conductor, his love-hate relationship with the Vienna Opera, and his emergence as a great composer is well told.

The author does a shorter chapter on each symphony as the book proceeds. I managed to listen to each symphony as I read about it, though the music in each case far outlasted the chapter.

700 plus pages was at first daunting, but the book is immensely readable. Part of the enjoyment is the lineup of historical figures that brushed shoulders with Mahler, ranging from Faure to Freud. Another part is the role of location, with Vienna looming the most largely, and most other European cities appearing on tour dates.

A fine biography that honors a great composer and conductor.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

'A regimental band normally consisted of eight soldiers. At the front was the conductor with his large stick to beat time, a stick that he would flourish with a great show of virtuosity. Behind him were a trumpet and and a cornet, then generally a baritone horn and a tuba and finally, cymbals and two sets of drums.... The typical Iglau dance band consisted of a string quartet comprising a four-string 'Klarfiedel,' a three-string 'Grobfiedel,' a viola and a 'Platschperment,' the latter a small double bass that the player rested diagonally on his upper legs and played with a bow.'

'In order not to be disturbed, he once climbed out on to the roof of his parents' house through the skylight and spent hours up there. As before, search parties were sent out to look for him, and he was finally spotted from the house opposite. His father went up in the attic, trembling with fear and anger but not daring to call to the child in case he fell from the roof in his fright. An hour later, Mahler left his idyllic refuge of his own accord and was greeted by his father with a sound thrashing.'

'The aspect of Des Knaben Wunderhorn that appealed to Mahler so disarmingly and so directly was what might be termed its emotional polyphony. Natalie Bauer-Lechner reports that while he was attending a fair near the Wörthersee during the summer of 1900, Mahler was so taken by the combined sounds of the shooting galleries and Punch and Judy show, the military band music and the singing of a male-voice choir, that he exclaimed: "You hear? That's polyphony, and that's where I get it from! [...] Just in this way - from quite different directions - must the themes appear; and they must be just as different from each other in rhythm and melodic character (everything else is merely many-voiced writing, homophony in disguise). The only difference is that the artist orders and unites them all into one concordant and harmonious whole."'

'These are musical phrases which, part of the common currency, can derive from all areas of music and which had previously never found their way into art music or, having once formed part of it, had sunk to the level of a commonplace. Here we may find an important key to understanding the notorious banalities and trivialities that are contained in Mahler's music but which are in fact elemental idioms. [...] Mahler created his symphonies out of this raw material that had left its mark on the world around him, from the singing of his childhood nanny to the strains of Bohemian musicians and brass-band music played in garrison towns. ...they may also be conveyed in the choice of unusual instruments that found their way into Mahler's late Romantic symphony orchestra: cowbells, posthorn, guitar and mandolin are semantically charged signs that evoke certain extra-musical associations, recalling the last booming sound of the mountain slope before the hiker ascends to heights devoid of beasts and humans or suggesting the melancholy of a coach ride or a night-time serenade. [...] Or we could put it another way: using a vocabulary that seems familiar and sometimes even intimately colloquial, Mahler expresses all that is unheard of and uncanny, all that is unsettling and upsetting. What was alien sounds familiar, and what is familiar now seems alien. Such an analysis may also be applied to Mahler himself, an individual who time and again seems to us to be so perplexing.'

'In November 1897 the Wiener Sonn- und Montagszeitung published a satire under the heading of 'Regulations for Patrons of the Court Opera,' according to which a cannon would be fired at the Arsenal at five o'clock in the afternoon, advising patrons that it was time to get ready for the opera. Moreover, on the day before the performance opera-goers had to inform their landlords of their intention of attending the opera, so that they could be urged to leave the building in good time. In order to avoid lengthy waits at the cloakrooms, all patrons would be issued with a standard opera cape at cost price. These capes could be removed with a single clasp and already bore the number of the cloakroom ticket emblazoned on their back.'

'Mahler was particularly taken by his theory on ears, according to which we can control all our other organs with the single exception of the ears, which alone reveal the naked truth about a person. The Mahler duly made a party game of judging new acquaintances by their ears.'

'Mahler had arranged movements from the second and third of the four Orchestral Suites, allotting the continuo part to an organ and prevailing on Steinway & Sons to modify one of their pianos so that it sounded like a harpsichord. According to the printed programme, 'Mr. Mahler will play the Bach Klavier in the compositions of Bach and Handel.' This 'Bach Klavier' was an unusual instrument as far as the music lovers of the time were concerned, for in Mozart's operas, for example, the recitatives were accompanied on a modern piano.'

[Maher Battuti · Rating 5 out of 5]

هذا الكتاب الضخم الذي يزيد عن 750 صفحة ، هو المثال الأعلى لمن يريد الكتابة عن حياة أحد المشهورين ، بتفاصيل دقيقة قد لا يتحملها القارئ العادي . فهو يكتب عن كل شيء – صغيرا أو كبيرا – عن الموسيقار جوستاف مالر ، عن أبويه وأسرته والمحيط الذي نشأ فيه ، ومن أثّر فيه في طفولته وصباه ، وصفاته الجسمانية . ويذكر بتفصيلات شديدة كل مراحل حياته ، وكيف بدا اهتمامه بالموسيقى ، والأماكن التي عمل بها ، قبل أن ينتقل الى فيينا حين كانت مركز الفن في أواخر القرن التاسع عشر وأوائل العشرين . ونعرف في الكتاب كل من تعرف اليه مالر ، وكل من أحب ، وكل سيمفونية كتبها ، وعلاقته بزوجته "ألما" . ويحلل الكتاب دقائق فن الموسيقى الكلاسيكية والأوبرات ومن يغني في بعضها . ووصف لكتاب كل المدن التي عاش فيها مالر ، ومن بينها نيويورك حيق عمل فيها المايسترو الأساسي للمتروبوليتان أوركسترا وكذلك عمل في كارنيجي هول .

[Mal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to read this book for a class in grad school. Very detailed biography of Mahler’s life which was interesting at moments. But, the writing is hard to follow. Nothing is in chronological order except the chapters on his music that are sprinkled in between others. In one chapter we could be talking about his homelessness and then suddenly we are somewhere in the future when the author decides to mention someone he meets later in life… all around confusing. I wish the chapters about his music were longer instead of getting a 40-page history lesson on Austria or Germany where Mahler’s name is only mentioned once or twice every other chapter.

[Madelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

"How absurd it is to let oneself be submerged in the brutal whirlpool of life! To be untrue to oneself and to those higher things above oneself for even a single hour! But writing that down like this is one thing—on the next occasion, for instance, if I now leave this room of mine, I shall certainly again be as absurd as everyone else. What is it then that things in us? And what acts in us?" (594)

[Pamela Okano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really a 4.5. Mahler is one of my favorite composers and this lengthy volume is his authoritative biography. Detailed (do you want to know what Mahler ate for breakfast?), the book not only discusses Mahler's life and music, but what was happening in Central Europe (plus bits in the US and France) at the time, thereby setting the stage for what was to happen 22 years after Mahler's death. For anyone who loves Mahler's music, this book is a must read.

[Joel Rodeback · Rating 5 out of 5]

Academic in tone and fairly exhaustive; not a narrative biography. The scholarship is first-rate and the prose lucid. The translation, too, is quite well done. The chapters on the musical works are not terribly detailed from a musicological standpoint, but focus mainly on Mahler’s compositional processes, while providing a general overview of the works themselves. Psychoanalysis is employed aptly and sparingly. A superb resource for getting to know the man and his work.

[Sophie Engstrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book! 700 pages of true pleasure.

[Maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

WONDERFUL WONDERFUL WONDERFUL WONDERFUL

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mahler is one of the best bio's that I have ever read. The author gives a great historical background of the political and artistic climate in Eastern Europe and in particular Austria. Clearly Mahler was a victim of anti-Semitism throughout his life. In spite of the fact that Mahler was an accomplished conductor of Wagner opera's, he was attacked by the fans of Wagner and Wagner's family because of his Jewish background. My only criticism would be that the author could have given more attention to Mahler's lieder. Through out the book the author gives a brilliant description of each of the nine symphonies and Das Lied von der Erde.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very fine account of the life of the great composer. Mahler largely earned his living as one of the top conductors of his day, and this side of his career is covered in much detail. The book also gives a fascinating glimpse into life in fin de siècle Vienna. The spotlight is cast on the spirit of the times, revealing the dreadful anti-Semitism rampant throughout Viennese society -which Mahler suffered from - foreboding the grim happenings of a few decades later. I highly recommend this book.

[Joseph Haletky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long and not easy (it's a translation from the German), but very complete and vivid. One thing he missed was the fact that Mahler invented "movie music" -- before movies! Movie composers, from Korngold to John Williams based their style on the late romantics, especially Mahler. Doubt this? There are themes in Mahler's Second that prefigure some of the Star Wars themes!

[Vincent Osborn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhaustive and exhausting read! Excellent biography of Mahler, but my only criticism is that the translation made it tough going at times. Not all of it, much of it was a relatively easy read and extremely interesting. Parts of it felt like someone else was helping with the translation and it felt like English was a secondary language for them. Nevertheless it is a fabulous biography!

[Gotter · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an interesting and somewhat entertaining read, but it also has a few too many speculative conclusions with nothing to back it up.

[Robert Lamb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long on quantity, but clunky and hard work. Unmahlerian.

[John B · Rating 4 out of 5]

For Mahler enthusiasts and for those beginning to study him
this is the definitive work. A "must have" to anyone's music library.

[Chris Witt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhaustive. Belongs on shelves of those who consider themselves Mahler fans.