Gustav Mahler: Letters To His Wife [Hardcover]

Gustav Mahler (Author), Henry-Louis De LA Grange (Editor), Knud Martner (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2004

Gustav Mahler and Alma Maria Schindler were married in . . . 1902. The bride was twenty-one and a half years old, her groom a few months short of forty-two. Apart from their substantial age difference, it seems to have been the very disparity of their intellectual and social backgrounds that drew them together. Mahler was attracted to Alma by her beauty, her alert mind and emotional intensity. Though aware that he possessed by far the broader outlook, he trusted in Alma’s ability and willingness to learn from him."—from the Introduction

"Once the stiffness of unfamiliarity has been softened by a few months of marriage, Mahler’s style of correspondence with Alma is generally simple, direct, and astonishingly down-to-earth. In a manner akin to that of his musical style, he spikes his language with witticisms and double-entendres, colloquialisms and quotations from librettos and classical works of literature."—from the Preface

This profusely illustrated collection of Gustav Mahler’s letters to his wife Alma is more comprehensive than any previous edition; it contains 350 letters, 188 of them until now unpublished. Since 1995, when the German edition of this book was first published, two events have served to expand its horizons: the publication in 1997 of the complete text of Alma’s early diaries, dating from January 1898 to March 1902, and the publication in 2003 of a catalogue of all Mahler letters acquired from the Moldenhauer Archives. With the aid of this new material, the editors were also able to revise the dates assigned to many of the letters. Commentaries and annotations throughout the book have been corrected and expanded annotations included. The editors’ introduction provides a biographical context for the correspondence that follows.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Not unlike his grand and idiosyncratic musical oeuvre, Gustav Mahler’s marriage to Alma Mahler straddled the border between the Romantic 19th and the Modern 20th centuries. Even as they shared a mutual ambition to realize their full potential as artists, Alma soon fell into the traditional role of dutiful wife to her genius husband. Ultimately, their relationship was far more complicated than this single dynamic, but a year before they married, the 22-year-old Alma already sensed the ambiguous influence the much older and fiercely self-dedicated Gustav would have on her. "Already I am aware of changes in myself, due to him," she confided to her diary. "He is taking much away from me and giving me much in return. If this process continues, he will make a new person of me." As Gustav’s letters suggest, Alma produced her own equal and opposite effect, intimate vibrations that were registered in Mahler’s massive structures of sound. Her famous liaisons with other prominent artists of her time—including painter Oskar Kokoschka and architect Walter Gropius—almost seem prefigured here as well, as a vicarious outlet to her own stifled artistic agency. 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. Accompanying editorial notes—and generous excerpts from Alma’s diaries and memoirs—help bridge the chronological gaps between letters and provide further context for the Mahlers’ relationship. But 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 sure-fire appeal to students of modern art and feminism.
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About the Author

Henry-Louis de La Grange is President of the Gustav Mahler Musical Library, Paris, and the author of a four-volume biography of Mahler. Günther Weiss has published books and essays on, among others, Bartók, Pfitzner, Reger, and Strauss. Knud Martner, a Danish music researcher, is the editor of Selected Letters of Gustav Mahler. Antony Beaumont is the author of Zemlinsky and coeditor with Susanne Rode-Breymann and translator of Alma Mahler-Werfel’s Diaries 1898–1902 (both from Cornell).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 431 pages
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr (October 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801443407
• ISBN-13: 978-0801443404
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,251,216 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mahler's Muse, March 4, 2005

By 

Melanie Gilbert (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gustav Mahler: Letters To His Wife (Hardcover)

In "Letters to his Wife," the reader is privy to the intensely private and somewhat ordinary reflections of the extraordinary composer/conductor, Gustav Mahler.

But that very ordinariness is what makes this book so fascinating: that alongside genius lies its twin of conventionality expressed in those unguarded moments between intimates. The collection of letters span a decade: From Mahler's courtship of Alma Mahler in 1900 until his tragically early death at age 50 in 1910.

You get the sense that Mahler felt he had nothing to prove to his wife as the correspondence deals with everyday issues and concerns such as eating and sleeping habits, bowel troubles and the loneliness of life on the road. The letters also convey a deeply confident and uncompromising man who takes immense joy in writing his wife about his personal world while at the same time dismissing her from his professional one.

The power in this collection comes from the slowly but steadily growing tension that the reader senses from Alma Mahler (whose letters are not included but whose feelings can be discerned through Mahler's) against her clueless husband which culminates in her betrayal through infidelity. With his emotional sense of security violently violated, Mahler's letters completely unravel and come across as hesitant and pandering. Within the year, he was dead.

Mahler's musical genius has already been well-documented. What this book documents - in Mahler's own hand - is the important role Alma's unconditional love and emotional support played in his life and work, too. He underestimated her to his ultimate peril.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alma was no angel--except in Mahler's mind, March 8, 2008

By 

Mr John Haueisen (WORTHINGTON, OHIO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gustav Mahler: Letters To His Wife (Hardcover)

This collection of 350 letters and telegrams from composer Gustav Mahler to his wife, Alma, illustrates the good and bad points of a fortunate and unfortunate marriage.


It is a very fortunate marriage for lovers of Mahler's unique and beautiful music. The music might never have been written had he not married his idealized image of a one true love. Alma was not his inspiration--it was his idealized view of her that, despite her behavior, kept him going. She did not understand, or even enjoy his music, but she did enjoy the celebrity position of being married to the greatest conductor in a world that worshipped music. Fortunately, Mahler was never able to bring himself to see her shortcomings. He had made up his mind that superficial beauty (at least in Alma's case) equaled virtue, and he projected virtue onto everything that Alma did.

It was an unfortunate marriage in that, at the age of 22, marrying a man nearly twice her age, Alma had not had a chance to develop character and direction for her own life. She very much enjoyed being in the spotlight of fame, yet she had never earned any of it for herself. After Mahler's death, Alma continued this pattern of getting into the limelight by "hooking-up" with famous people. She married, or had affairs with architect Walter Gropius, artist Oskar Kokoschka, novelist Franz Werfel, composer Alexander Zemlinsky, and various others.

While this behavior kept her in the top circles of Viennese society, it simultaneously prevented her from ever doing anything notable on her own. It was an unfortunate marriage for Alma. It was what she wanted, but with it, she ceased all personal growth. It was "A Fortunate and Unfortunate Marriage."