Gustav Mahler - Tapa dura

"Sympathetic ... evocative ... original and refreshingly opinionated."-John Adams, New York Times Book Review -- John Adams New York Times Book Review "Superb...A passionate book in which Gustav Mahler emerges as a true genius."-Ralph Collier, Quarter Notes -- Ralph Collier Quarter Notes "Much has been written in recent years about this supremely gifted, high-strung composer/conductor, but nothing better than Fischer's intelligent and sympathetic biography."-Reporter-Times Reporter-Times "Mahlerians will welcome this important work for its synthesis of new and old data within a bold, passionately argued study ... [Fischer's] biography may be the most rewarding way to appreciate Mahler and his resonant art."-Jeffery S. McMillan, Opera News -- Jeffery S. McMillan Opera News

A best seller when first published in Germany in 2003, Jens Malte Fischer's Gustav Mahler has been lauded by scholars as a landmark work. He draws on important primary resources-some unavailable to previous biographers-and sets in narrative context the extensive correspondence between Mahler and his wife, Alma; Alma Mahler's diaries; and the memoirs of Natalie Bauer-Lechner, a viola player and close friend of Mahler, whose private journals provide insight into the composer's personal and professional lives and his creative process. Fischer explores Mahler's early life, his relationship to literature, his achievements as a conductor in Vienna and New York, his unhappy marriage, and his work with the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic in his later years. He also illustrates why Mahler is a prime example of artistic idealism worn down by Austrian anti-Semitism and American commercialism. Gustav Mahler is the best-sourced and most balanced biography available about the composer, a nuanced and intriguing portrait of his dramatic life set against the backdrop of early 20th century America and fin de siecle Europe.