Overview
"An elegant book that shines a powerful light on both Mahler and his music." -The New York Times
Synopsis
In Mahler, Jonathan Carr reexamines Mahler's life and work on through the circumstances leading to his death in 1911. The focus is on Mahler's last decade, his tempestuous marriage to the alluring Alma Schindler, his work as a "summer composer" in isolated huts in the country, his revolutionary achievements as director of the Vienna opera and his final years in America. But it sets the stage by looking into Mahler's earlier career as a talented, ambitious, and often ruthless, conductor. The book includes a chronology of Mahler's life and makes suggestions for a CD collection.
Library Journal
Carr, a British journalist living in Germany, has been researching Gustav Mahler's life and attending performances of his music since 1960. His concise, caring portrait turns flinty (and more captivating) whenever Mahler's wife, Alma, is the subject. By turns Carr describes, quotes, argues with, dismisses, apparently mistranslates, and yields to her, making plain his conflicting feelings toward her. Catalogers of this book should add a subject entry for Alma, for just over half the book focuses on Mahler's life and music after marriage. A popular, opinionated treatment using new evidence from a postcard here, an item "tucked away" in an archive there, this book ends with a useful bibliographic/discographic essay. A good choice for biography collections.Bonnie Jo Dopp, Performing Arts Lib., Univ. of Maryland Lib.