Gustav Mahler: Letters to his Wife - Tapa dura

Alma Mahler-Werfel was one of the most fascinating and ambivalent of twentieth-century women. Her book Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters (1940) includes 159 of Mahler's letters, yet only 37 of these were published in their original, unedited form. Alma's omissions and alterations were all part of the legend, and reveal that it was her intention to present herself in as flattering a light as possible. This new edition restores the original texts and includes a further 188 letters and other unpublished documents. The texts, supplemented by detailed commentaries, depict an explosive relationship between two people of widely differing character and temperament. The Mahler that emerges from these authentic, unabridged sources is warm, genuine and touchingly human.

Antony Beaumont is the author of Busoni the Composer (Faber, 1985) and Zemlinsky (Faber, 2000). 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.