Gustav Mahler : Letters to His Wife - Hardcover

GUstaV Mahler

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571212042 ISBN 13: 9780571212040

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Synopsis

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

About this title

About the Author

Antony Beaumont was born in London and studied at King's College, Cambridge. He now lives in Germany where he is active as a conductor, lecturer, and freelance musicologist. In 1992, Beaumont was commissioned by the Hamburg State Opera to complete the orchestration of Zemlinsky's last opera, Der König Kandaules. Premièred in 1996, the work has since been staged by several other opera companies, recorded and televised. Beaumont has also edited and (where necessary) reconstructed several other major works from the composer's posthumous papers at the Library of Congress.Antony Beaumont is author of Busoni the Composer (Faber, 1985). He co-edited (with Susanne Rode-Breymann) Alma Mahler-Werfel's Diaries 1898-1902, his English translation of which was published to great acclaim by Faber in 1998.

Review

"Gustav Mahler's letters to his wife have two distinct kinds of interest: as evidence in the story of a difficult and often unhappy marriage, and as a detailed, hour-by-hour account of the professional life of a great musician. . . . Mahler wrote nothing but music and letters: no essay, memoir, treatise or manifesto. From the music itself we can deduce much about his feelings for Beethoven or Wagner or Bach; but the letters, and the memoirs of others, are all we have to turn to for his explicit opinions on music. . . . The material in this book gives a large and deep picture of Mahler's personality. Just as his music is marked by shifts of register and scale, so his letters to Alma are engagingly many-voiced. . . . The fervent letters of the last year, many of them containing poems, are a record of the emotional distress bordering on madness that led Mahler to his consultation with Freud in August 1910. They are almost too painful and private to read."―Alan Hollinghurst, The Guardian, October 30, 2004

"The Mahler literature is huge, and many of Mahler's letters have already appeared in print. But what has come fully to light during the last decade adds greatly to our understanding of Mahler and his marriage. . . . This book allows us not only to fill in some gaps but to gain a vivid and telling portrayal of Mahler's personality in his voice."―Hugh Wood, Times Literary Supplement, November 12, 2004

"If you listen to Mahler's nine symphonies it is obvious the man was an artist in touch with oceans of raw emotion. It is enlightening, however, to square these tracts of musical genius with the fragile 'Gustl' revealed in these letters"Tired, loving, ill, worried, romantic, neurotic, petty, angry, disenchanted: all the signs of a functional human being. . . . He is frequently witty, sometimes scathing, but more often sad, lonesome, and vulnerable. . . . This is a fine, if weighty and demanding, book that will help the casual reader more fully understand the personality of one of the great modern composers. . . . Devotees of the great man, however, will be equally saddened, moved, and transfixed by these letters, which at their most vivid are written with a quill dipped in the well of his agonized soul."―Phil Miller, The Herald

"The letters . . . offer correctives to Alma's distortions and a fascinating glimpse into the grueling life of a renowned guest conductor, regularly subjected to overnight train rides, second-rate hotels, and exhausting rehearsals. The letters also reveal Mahler's complex character. He was impatient and arrogant but also generous, forgiving, and solicitous of his friends and colleagues."―Tess Lewis, The Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2004

"Not unlike his grand and idiosyncratic musical oeuvre, Gustav Mahler's marriage to Alma Mahler straddled the border between the Romantic nineteenth and the Modern twentieth centuries. . . . Collectors of Mahleriana will find this expertly compiled volume indispensable. More than half of its 350 letters and postcards are published for the first time, and many of the old letters, which were once heavily emended by the distorting hands of Alma herself, are restored to their original form. . . . It's the novel-like intensity of the pair's complex and tempestuous love affair that will really broaden the audience for this book beyond its surefire appeal to students of modern art and feminism."―Publishers Weekly, 13 December 2004

"At first a little formal, Mahler's writing loosens up after a few months of marriage; soon he leavens his language with witticisms, clever quotes, double entendres, and slang. One hears the same tone in his later correspondence for example, as he writes in 1910 about his session with Freud. By contrast, Alma, always aware of posterity looking over her shoulder, seems eager to appear the consort of a demigod. Generously illustrated, well indexed, and conscientiously translated, this long-awaited volume will be devoured by Mahlerites and will be a valuable reader for others. Highly recommended."―M. Meckna, Texas Christian University, Choice, April 2005

Edition details

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• ISBN 10: 0571212042
• ISBN 13: 9780571212040
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 431
• Editor: Henry-Louis De La Grange, Gunther Weiss