El mundo de Mahler

by Norman Lebrecht

El mundo de Mahler reune de manera exhaustiva todo el material mahleriano, incluyendo testimonios y documentos hasta ahora desconocidos, que se complementan con introducciones y notas. El resultado es tan iluminador, apasionado, dramático y por momentos tan contradictorio, que produce un efecto sumamente vivido. Aquí hablan de la vida y la obra de Mahler sus colegas, discipulos, familiares, amigos, rivales y enemigos: Richard Strauss, Peter Tchaikovsky, Alma Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton von Webern, Romain Rolland, Jean Sibelius, Alban Berg, Sergei Rachmaninov, Sigund Freud, Stefan Zweig y Thomas Mann, entre muchos otros.

Genres: Music, History, Biography, Nonfiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1988

About the author

Norman Lebrecht (born 11 July 1948 in London) is a British commentator on music and cultural affairs and a novelist. He was a columnist for The Daily Telegraph from 1994 until 2002 and assistant editor of the Evening Standard from 2002 until 2009. On BBC Radio 3, he has presented lebrecht.live from 2000 and The Lebrecht Interview from 2006.

He has written twelve books about music, which have been translated into 17 languages. Coming up in 2010 is Why Mahler?, a new interpretation of the most influential composer of modern times. See Books for more details. Also coming back in print is Mahler Remembered (Faber, 1987).

Norman Lebrecht's first novel The Song of Names won a Whitbread Award in 2003. His second, The Game of Opposites, was published in the US by Pantheon Books. A third is in preparation.

A collection of Lebrecht columns will be published this year in China, the first such anthology by any western cultural writer. A Lebrecht conversation appears monthly in The Strad, magazine of the strings professions.

The Lebrecht Interview will return in July 2010 on BBC Radio 3 and there will be further editions of The Record Doctor in New York on WNYC.

A year-long series of events, titled Why Mahler?, will open on London's South Bank in September 2010, curated by Norman Lebrecht.

Other works in progress include a stage play and various radio and television documentaries.

Reviews

[Vicki Seldon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a highly readable collection of remembrances of Gustav Mahler from those who knew him personally and professionally throughout his lifetime. Lebrecht includes vignettes from artists and cultural figures from Hugo Wolf and Richard Strauss to Thomas Mann and Sigmund Freud. What emerges from their words is the description of a personality as fascinating,complex and contradictory as the symphonies and song cycles. A must- read for the thousands of musicians performing his works and also an interesting read for those seeming a better understanding of European cultural history in the age commonly referred to as fin de siècle .

[Matthew Winkler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I guess I’ve officially read every page in this book

Was using it for research so I jumped around all Willy nilly but after 3 months of that I realized huh I’ve read every page in here

It’s absurd that a Mahler reader doesn’t exist but this is the closest thing we currently have in English

[Ricardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tras su muerte, tanto la obra como la memoria de Mahler fueron controlados por su viuda, Alma Schindler-Mahler-Gropius-Werfel, que lo sobrevivió por más de 50 años. Pero las memorias de Alma eran antojadizas y mostraban a un Mahler tiránico y débil.

En este libro Lebrecht intenta componer un relato más imparcial de Mahler, con la recolección de casi un centenar de extractos sacados de cartas, memorias, artículos periodísticos, etc. de gente que conoció a Mahler en vida. Si bien desfilan grandes nombres como Freud o Zweig, éstos lo conocieron sólo de paso, y las memorias más revelatorias vienen de gente como Alfred Roller (diseñador y director escénico de muchas de las óperas que Mahler dirigió) o Carl Moll, su suegro (gran admirador de Mahler, a pesar de ser un antijudío convencido).

Más alla de las infidelidades de Alma, la temprana muerte de su primogénita, o incluso su enfermedad cardíaca; lo que determinó la carrera de Mahler fue haber nacido judío. Fue una orquestada campaña antisemita la que lo sacó de de la ópera real de Viena y lo que lo hizo sufrir también en Nueva York. Y para dar una visión más completa de "el mundo de Mahler", son esas opiniones, por odiosas que sean, las que faltan en este libro, que sólo incluye un virulento obituario publicado en un diario neoyorquino.

[Ron Grimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a series of snapshots of Mahler's life from his contemporaries. As such, its approach was different from the form of a "traditional" biography and was a refreshing change. At the same time, the book was well set in its historical background and helped reflect real life for the 1920s-40s.
However, I found that towards the end, the personal descriptions stated to overlap or felt repetitive and I skimmed a bit more in the later chapters.

[Jon Newman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, but probably only for Mahler geeks like me.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

A series of primary sources written about and by Gustav Mahler. He is a mythical figure, so reading the mundane acoounts of his life brings everything into perspective.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those people that knew Mahler do so in letters, correspondence, reminiscing late - Romantic, composer. Impressions from people, who were coevals. No bio, but verbal details about man.