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Gustav Mahler #2
Gustav Mahler, Volume 2:. Vienna: The Years of Challenge
In an age of artistic accomplishment, Gustav Mahler stood out as one of the supremely gifted musicians of his generation. As a composer, he won acclaim for his startling originality. As a conductor, his relentless pursuit of perfection was sometimes seen as tyrannical by the singers and musicians who came under his baton. And always, even with his greatest triumphs, he provoked controversy among the critics. Now Henry-Louis de La Grange, Mahler's celebrated biographer, offers new insight into Mahler's life and work with his latest look at the career of this musical genius.
In Mahler in Vienna, La Grange follows the great musician to the intellectual and artistic capital of turn-of-the-century Europe. From Mahler's spectacular debut as director of the Vienna Court Opera to his triumphant tour of the continent, we see him at the height of his powers. La Grange vividly portrays the marvelous spectacle, including the extraordinary range of artists who worked with Mahler--the composers Dvorak, Gustave Charpentier, Richard Strauss, Zemlinsky, and Schoenberg; the painters, architects, and decorators of the Secession (led by Klimt); and the writers Hauptmann, Dehmel, Hofmannsthal, and Schnitzler. In Vienna, the conductor worked a revolution in standards of performance and (along with Secession painter Alfred Roller) scenic illustration. It was also during this period that he wrote some of his best-loved symphonies--including his Fourth and Fifth--and his three orchestral song-cycles and collections, the Wunderhorn-, Ruckert-, and Kindertotenlieder. For each of these works La Grange provides full notes and analytic descriptions. And the author does not neglect Mahler's temptestuous personal life, for during these years he met Alma Schindler--"the most beautiful woman in Vienna." La Grange deftly captures the story of their engagement and marriage in 1902.
Mahler remains one of the greatest figures in the history f music, a man whose work provokes strong reactions today as in his own time. This account is just one part of the definitive four-volume biography Gustav Mahler, the result of a thirty-year research project; the author has personally translated it from his original French into English. Scrupulously researched and insightfully written, this volume is a brilliant account of a critical epoch in Mahler's life.
In Mahler in Vienna, La Grange follows the great musician to the intellectual and artistic capital of turn-of-the-century Europe. From Mahler's spectacular debut as director of the Vienna Court Opera to his triumphant tour of the continent, we see him at the height of his powers. La Grange vividly portrays the marvelous spectacle, including the extraordinary range of artists who worked with Mahler--the composers Dvorak, Gustave Charpentier, Richard Strauss, Zemlinsky, and Schoenberg; the painters, architects, and decorators of the Secession (led by Klimt); and the writers Hauptmann, Dehmel, Hofmannsthal, and Schnitzler. In Vienna, the conductor worked a revolution in standards of performance and (along with Secession painter Alfred Roller) scenic illustration. It was also during this period that he wrote some of his best-loved symphonies--including his Fourth and Fifth--and his three orchestral song-cycles and collections, the Wunderhorn-, Ruckert-, and Kindertotenlieder. For each of these works La Grange provides full notes and analytic descriptions. And the author does not neglect Mahler's temptestuous personal life, for during these years he met Alma Schindler--"the most beautiful woman in Vienna." La Grange deftly captures the story of their engagement and marriage in 1902.
Mahler remains one of the greatest figures in the history f music, a man whose work provokes strong reactions today as in his own time. This account is just one part of the definitive four-volume biography Gustav Mahler, the result of a thirty-year research project; the author has personally translated it from his original French into English. Scrupulously researched and insightfully written, this volume is a brilliant account of a critical epoch in Mahler's life.
892 pages, Hardcover
First published May 18, 1995
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About the author
Henry-Louis de La Grange
25 books6 followersThe son of an American mother and French father who was a senator and former governor minister, Henry Louis de la Grange studied the humanities in Paris and New York and literature at Aix-en-Provence University and at the Sorbonne. It was in 1945 when attending a performance of Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony conducted by Bruno Walter that he first became interested in the composer. He began what became a lifelong investigation of Mahler's life and works, the research of which formed the basis of his multi-volume biography of the composer.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 28, 2012
Volume 2 of Henry-Louis de la Grange’s titanic uber-biography covers the period of Mahler’s accession to the directorate of the Vienna Hofoper and Philharmonic, the earliest performances of his second, third, and fourth symphonies, and the composition of the fourth, fifth, and sixth symphonies, as well as the Kindertotenlieder. This period also encompasses the end of the devoted and thoughtful Natalie Bauer-Lechner as a source and the beginning of the completely horrid, narcissistic and over-wrought Alma Schindler. The book is so full of detail, it can be utterly overwhelming, and the smart reader will need some sort of strategy for parsing it all out. But one benefit of LaGrange's use of the sources is the context he provides to every quote. For instance, I have long thought of reading Natalie Bauer-Lechner's book of recollections of Mahler, but LaGrange's quotes provide so much contextual detail that I don't think I need to.
What does one get out of this book?
Details of how Mahler engineered change at the Vienna Hofoper
Descriptions of all the artists of the time and how Mahler worked with them.
Reception of Mahler's own works, as well as all his actions as a conductor
Much detail on the anti-Semitic press, and how they constantly hounded every move Mahler made with both the opera and the Philharmonic.
Much biographical detail from Natalie Bauer-Lechner's Mahleriana, which was unpublished with this biography was first written. Nice to have all of her comments put completely into context of what was going on at the time.
Mahler's musical programming--his likes and dislikes, and his occasional struggles with living composers.
To give just a few examples of the hysterical journalism with which Mahler had to contend, these comments come from the first reviews of Mahler’s fourth Symphony:
"The first movement could be Daniel in the lion's den, Orpheus slaughtered by the Maenads, genius delivered to the beasts!" William Ritter
"It also contains musical jokes of doubtful taste. A horde of goblins roams around tormenting the audience, and while they don't actually slap their faces, they pierce or tickle their ears, pull their hair and repeatedly hit them on the nose." Munich Allgemeine-Zeitung
"It was nothing but 'technique, calculation, vanity, a morbid and insipid supermusic, a shapeless stylistic monstrosity that collapses under a surfeit of witty details.'" Theodor Kroyer
Anyone familiar with the placid fourth symphony will find these comments both shocking and amusing. Occasionally, though, the critics were capable of genuine insight:
From the Journal de Liege: "Mahler's [second] Symphony, despite its grand design, is to a certain extent the work of a skeptic. The vast poem of life exalts fatality and the inexorable grip of Destiny far more than singing our sublimated sufferings and joys...One feels oneself engaged in a sort of flirtation with a joy which is lacking abandonment or confidence...the work seems to be analysing itself...This life is no longer simply lived, it spills over from among the alchemies of skepticism and disillusionment."
Likewise, the press critics did on occasion appreciate Mahler’s reform efforts at the Hofoper:
"Hirschfield reviewed the performance [26 Nov 1899] at great length and found it 'worthy of Bayreuth': for the first time in Vienna, Die Meistersinger had been treated as the light, fast-flowing comedy it really was; the dialogues had been speeded up; instead of a trailing encumbrance, the orchestra had become a moving force--it had never drowned the singers, so that each word and all the most subtle relationships between the motifs could easily be perceived."
By and large, though, the press was harshly critical of Mahler, his music, his conducting, and of course, his race. In that regard, the book becomes a bit of a slog: reading page after page of the Viennese press pounding on Mahler gets mighty tiresome. But that was the environment in which Mahler worked.
This is a magnificent book, and I look forward to tackling volume 3 later in the year. Maybe by the time I have read volumes 3 and 4, Oxford will finally have gotten around to publishing the revised volume 1.
What does one get out of this book?
Details of how Mahler engineered change at the Vienna Hofoper
Descriptions of all the artists of the time and how Mahler worked with them.
Reception of Mahler's own works, as well as all his actions as a conductor
Much detail on the anti-Semitic press, and how they constantly hounded every move Mahler made with both the opera and the Philharmonic.
Much biographical detail from Natalie Bauer-Lechner's Mahleriana, which was unpublished with this biography was first written. Nice to have all of her comments put completely into context of what was going on at the time.
Mahler's musical programming--his likes and dislikes, and his occasional struggles with living composers.
To give just a few examples of the hysterical journalism with which Mahler had to contend, these comments come from the first reviews of Mahler’s fourth Symphony:
"The first movement could be Daniel in the lion's den, Orpheus slaughtered by the Maenads, genius delivered to the beasts!" William Ritter
"It also contains musical jokes of doubtful taste. A horde of goblins roams around tormenting the audience, and while they don't actually slap their faces, they pierce or tickle their ears, pull their hair and repeatedly hit them on the nose." Munich Allgemeine-Zeitung
"It was nothing but 'technique, calculation, vanity, a morbid and insipid supermusic, a shapeless stylistic monstrosity that collapses under a surfeit of witty details.'" Theodor Kroyer
Anyone familiar with the placid fourth symphony will find these comments both shocking and amusing. Occasionally, though, the critics were capable of genuine insight:
From the Journal de Liege: "Mahler's [second] Symphony, despite its grand design, is to a certain extent the work of a skeptic. The vast poem of life exalts fatality and the inexorable grip of Destiny far more than singing our sublimated sufferings and joys...One feels oneself engaged in a sort of flirtation with a joy which is lacking abandonment or confidence...the work seems to be analysing itself...This life is no longer simply lived, it spills over from among the alchemies of skepticism and disillusionment."
Likewise, the press critics did on occasion appreciate Mahler’s reform efforts at the Hofoper:
"Hirschfield reviewed the performance [26 Nov 1899] at great length and found it 'worthy of Bayreuth': for the first time in Vienna, Die Meistersinger had been treated as the light, fast-flowing comedy it really was; the dialogues had been speeded up; instead of a trailing encumbrance, the orchestra had become a moving force--it had never drowned the singers, so that each word and all the most subtle relationships between the motifs could easily be perceived."
By and large, though, the press was harshly critical of Mahler, his music, his conducting, and of course, his race. In that regard, the book becomes a bit of a slog: reading page after page of the Viennese press pounding on Mahler gets mighty tiresome. But that was the environment in which Mahler worked.
This is a magnificent book, and I look forward to tackling volume 3 later in the year. Maybe by the time I have read volumes 3 and 4, Oxford will finally have gotten around to publishing the revised volume 1.
Currently reading
July 11, 2025Same comment as Volume 3
May 13, 2007
Awaiting the fourth volume before I embark on the entire series...the agony is killing me!!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews