Gustav Mahler
Stephen DownesThe ambiguous, provocative Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler.
Gustav Mahler’s status as an icon of fin-de-siècle Viennese music is assured, with his works now staples of the concert repertoire. His life story has been told in numerous biographies, films and novels, yet he remains an ambiguous, provocative figure. Mahler was a composer who challenged musical form and style but identified with German Enlightenment and Romantic culture, disliking many contemporary artistic trends. He was a Jewish conductor who reached the pinnacle of his profession in antisemitic Vienna. He was supposedly haunted by death, embroiled in a torrid marriage, and his brief meeting with Freud has spurred posthumous psychoanalytical speculations. This book, reflecting the latest research, constructs a fresh interpretation of Mahler’s music in relation to his life.
The ambiguous, provocative Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler.
Gustav Mahler’s status as an icon of fin-de-siècle Viennese music is assured, with his works now staples of the concert repertoire. His life story has been told in numerous biographies, films and novels, yet he remains an ambiguous, provocative figure. Mahler was a composer who challenged musical form and style but identified with German Enlightenment and Romantic culture, disliking many contemporary artistic trends. He was a Jewish conductor who reached the pinnacle of his profession in antisemitic Vienna. He was supposedly haunted by death, embroiled in a torrid marriage, and his brief meeting with Freud has spurred posthumous psychoanalytical speculations. This book, reflecting the latest research, constructs a fresh interpretation of Mahler’s music in relation to his life.
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Wide-ranging, richly detailed and deeply thoughtful, this is also a very readable and enjoyable book. Downes doesn’t just relate the familiar stories, he questions them and asks what we should make today of the idea that Mahler’s music tells the story of his life.
'Julian Johnson, author of Mahler’s Voices
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”Full of energy and subtle understanding”, this is a Mahler biography for the twenty-first century. Stephen Downes weaves an intricate tapestry of the composer's life, loves, ideas and music that is as accessibly readable as it is intellectually and culturally stimulating.
'Jeremy Barham, Professor of Music, University of Surrey, and author of Rethinking Mahler
Prologue: Mahler’s Deaths/Mahler’s Lives
1. Mahler’s Childhood
2. Mahler the Reader
3. Mahler the Maestro
4. Mahler Composing in the Country
5. Gustav and Alma
6. The Late Gustav Mahler
References
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Stephen Downes is Professor of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London. His books include Music and Sentimentalism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (2021).