Gustav Mahler [Hardcover]

If I had to recommend one good and interesting biography for this year, I would choose this wonderful and outstanding book. In spite of its length, which runs to more than 700 pages, it contains so much information and new things about Mahler that you will not be able to put it down. In addition, I must also at this moment praise the translation of this book into English.
Mahler experts, musicians and fans are familiar with Henry Louis La Grange magnum opus, which was published in English and is more than 4500 pages long. To this day, La Grange's work is considered the most authoritative work on Mahler, thus one could easily ask: why another book on him?
The answer is simple: Fischer's book does include many new insights and a lot of details which do not appear in La Grange's work. In addition, Fischer's book is not only a biography but also a deep and broad analysis of most of Mahler's compositions. Some chapters are not easy to read and need a very close reading in order to better understand them. One can really feel that the author has German blood running in his veins, because he is extremely careful not only with facts ot their incorporation into a bigger picture, but also is cautious and careful with his interpretations and documentation.
The story of Gustav Mahler is known and only some lines about it would suffice here. Mahler was born in June 1860. He was of Jewish descent, converted to Catholicism towards the end of the 19th century, was persecuted by various and malicious critics before and after his conversion, got married to Alma, had two daughters, Anna amd Maria, lost Maria when she was a little girl, had an outstanding career as conductor in Vienna and Europe (despite being diagnosed with a grave heart condition), left for the USA, and died tragically of endocarditis ot the age of 50. He is buried in Grinzig, a suburb of Vienna.
The book has 37 chapters, each devoted to another aspect of Mahler's life. The new material incorporated here is from new sources mainly belonging to Hans Rott, who influenced Mahler to a great extent. Another source is that of Mahler's intimate friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner and the many letters written by the singer Anna von Mildenburg to Mahler.
The best chapters include information on Mahler's physical and mental health-a topic on which Mr. Fischer dwells much and does an outstanding job. He, it seems, spares no detail giving us the most intimate and private moments of Mahler. This is chapter 20, called: "Mahler's's Ilnesses: A Pathological Sketch". It is followed by another long chapter about Mahler's wife, Alma, which is extremely balanced, unlike some other writers who offered vitriolic attacks on her. It is no secret that the marriage of Mahler was extremely unhappy, as Mr. Fischer explains and exemplifies.
Another important and panoramically developed subject here is about the sources of Mahler's inspiration. Mahler was a very complicated human being, who made many enemies and there are plenty of anecdotes which are described showing to what extent Mahler resisted interference in his strict regime imposed on the orchestras and its players. He also made enemies by sweeping away ingrained operatic routine and inartistic bureaucratic practices. To quote from Fischer;
"He was remarkably short-sighted when it came to understanding human nature. He hated larger gatherings and regarded small talk as a criminal waste of time, so that if if he had been sitting in a corner at a party and heard a remark that fired him with enthusiasm, he would leap to his feet and draw the person aside, forcing them to divulge their opinions and showering them with his own. He was like a child assessing the usefulness of a new playmate".
But one also has to remember that, after all, he was a genius, an eccentric one, and Mr. Fischer does not hesitate to name him as such. One can easily argue that Mahler did not have much in common with the ordinary people, in his case: ordinary musicians, students or just friends.
One should remember that, in spite of all this, Mahler had some very close friends and they populate many parts of the book. Among them there were Siegfried Lipiner, Emil Freund, a childhood friend from Iglau and Mahler's legal adviser; Friedrich Rohr,the brothers Heinrich and Rudolf Krzyzanovsky, the first to become a Germanist and the second a conductor; Nina and Albert Spiegler and Guido Adler, the famous musicologist and Bruno Walter, whom, we are told," he treated as a kind of son".
The Vienna years were a terrible burden on Mahler and one of the main reasons for that was the malicious Viennese anti-Semitism, which drained almost all his energy and made him leave for the USA. The conclusion of the author is that Mahler's Judaism played only a minor part in the composer's life or in his compositions, because he was more concerned with a mystical God-all this as a result of his education and reading material. Among his many literary sources and favourites were Goethe and Jean Paul, who influenced him tremendously. One of those who influenced Mahler's Weltanschaaung was Gustav Theodor Fechner, who, in one of his books, claimed that every individual lives three stages on earth. In the third stage, his life becomes interwoven with those of other spirits raised to a higher existence. Thus, if he used the word "God", Mahler meant something different from the Jewish or Christian God.
The final chapter is about Mahler and posterity, where the renaissance of Mahler's works and many writings about him are summarized, analyzed and expanded on.
Mahler remains a mystery, even after reading this volume. It is worth quoting a short part from Julius Korngold's article, the well-known Viennesse critic, who wrote this about the composer in 1910:
"He (Mahler) refused to be found-by anybody. He was always consumed by his own ideas, assailed by an incessant flood of artistic inspiration. A great loner in a position held by someone traditionally beset on all sides; simple, lacking in all sense of need, a man innocent of all posturing, a child in the circle of his own".
Then, Korngold ended by striking a prophetic note: "The day will come when the importance of the 'Mahler era' will be clearly felt and will seem like some wondrous legend of a brilliant time at the Court Opera".
This book is not only about Mahler's life and works; is also a social and intellectual history of a bygone era, that of the fin-de-siecle Vienna and Europe, written by a superb researcher and master storyteller. There is no doubt that this biography will stay for us for many years to come and will be enjoyed not only by Mahlerites everywhere, but by every intelligent human being.

Not Just another Mahler Biography
By
Paul Fishbein
Not long ago, I thoroughly disagreed with Paul Gelman about his review of Norman Lebrecht's recent book on Gustav Mahler. I found humor, entertainment, and profound understanding in this subjective study of Mahler's pertinence for us a century after his untimely death.
However, I can only agree completely with Mr. Gelman's eloquent review of Jens Malte Fischer's one volume massive biography of Mahler. I had planned to write a detailed essay about this marvelous book, but after reading Gelman, I have little to add--other than to add my voice in agreement that this is a work well worth reading and that there is much to be gleaned from devoting precious time in closely studying what he has created. This is a biography that stands above almost all of the many that have been published on Mahler, as it not only provides a broad perspective about his life, but with great intelligence and sensitivity, paints a picture of turn of the century Vienna and its culture. I finished this book feeling that I finally had gotten to "know" Mahler the man and his works.
After the 4 volume biography of Mahler by Henry Louis de La Grange, I felt that any one volume effort would pale in contrast. But such is not the case with Fischer's tome. He does not give a day by day account of his subject's life, with each and every concert or performance review, but he does provide us with the pertinent articles; and one comes away feeling that we have lived through his experiences, his crises and triumphs.
What de La Grange is to Mahler, Ernest Newman, with his 4 volume biography, was to Richard Wagner. There was a time when I felt that no single volume could match that wonderful study on the controversial composer's life. But when Joachim Kohler's one volume biography was published, it was clear that more had been gained from less detail. The forest could finally be seen in contrast to the individual trees. Now we have Mr. Fischer's biography of Mahler, and it is a similar contribution. Newman is to Kohler as de La Grange is to Fischer. I would not wish to be without any of them.
Finally a word on the translation: It should be noted that both Kohler's and Fischer's studies have been brilliantly translated from the German by Stewart Spencer, a respected musical scholar whose abilities are well evinced in these efforts. Thanks are due to him for expanding the audience for these valuable books.

Let's start with the positives, as this is clearly the most comprehensive biography outside of Henri de la Grange's multi-volume set - some volumes of which are currently out-of-print in English (rumor has it that de la Grange is revising bits of it). I won't go into much detail here, as the reviewer who gave this book five stars has done an excellent job of covering the details already. Thus, this new Fischer bio. is now the best, most practical one outside of chasing down the various De la Grange volumes (which WILL cost you!). All that said, I do have some reservations.

First off, Fischer IS quite good at covering Mahler's early years, as well as Mahler's subsequent rise to the top of the conducting world in Germany and Austria (with stops in Prague and Budapest along the way). But Fischer more or less dismisses Mahler's late New York period - the last three conducting seasons of his life. In contrast to that, a brief look through another recent Mahler book, "Mahler's Concerts" by Knud Martner (published by the Kaplan Foundation), will quickly confirm that Mahler was anything but washed-up during his N.Y. years. That statement is true in spite of the political hardships and impediments placed by Mahler's own health problems. When did Mahler not have political hardships and issues with his health? Granted, it all came to a quick end in New York, but it was bound to end given the extent of the bacterial infection in his blood stream. Regardless, Mahler still had the time and energy to give the American premiere of many American, English and French works such as Debussy's "Iberia", the MacDowell piano concerto, the second piano concerto of Martucci, as well as Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto (which left Rachmaninoff stunned in the wake of Mahler's slavish efforts to get things right). The list goes on and on. The point is this: Mahler's taste in music became far more 'catholic' and cosmopolitan in his last period. It's even said that Mahler was carrying around a score of Ives' third symphony. Fischer makes no mention of that fact (I'm assuming that it is a fact).

I also take issue with one other tendency on Fischer's part, and that's his constant reaching for the words of musicologist Theodor Adorno when discussing Mahler's major works. While Adorno's take on Mahler is often times insightful, much of what he says strikes me as dated and slightly patronizing and/or condescending towards Mahler as a composer. He's quick to point out how good Mahler is when he's being ironic or sardonic (as well as just plain tragic), but doesn't trust Mahler when he concludes his symphonies with heaven storming chorales. I prefer commentators who take what Mahler composed at face value. For years, it's been all too easy to suspect that Mahler's musical victories were little more than hallow defeats in disguise. I hate that! At the very least, let listeners decide those issues for themselves. In fact, in an effort to present an objective and balanced view of Mahler as a man, I feel that Fischer reaches towards the side of negativity a bit too often.

If Mahler was such a thoroughly difficult and socially inept person, I find it difficult to believe that his 'star' would have risen as quickly as it did, regardless of how much of a workaholic he may have been. People just don't want to put up with that, although I do acknowledge that Mahler, 'pushed the envelope' on many occasions. But that had to be more the exception than the norm. He was able to pour on the charm when he needed to, and that need must have been far more frequent than Fischer leads us to believe. His overall picture of Mahler strikes me as a bit bleak. Maybe I'm over-reaching, but I was left with a somewhat dark and dreary picture of Mahler as a person. All the business with Natalie Bauer-Lechner, Alma Schindler - as well as the many other, earlier girlfriends in Mahler's life - doesn't help. That leads me to my last point.

For decades, we've all been far too willing equate Mahler's personal life with the music he composed. Books such as Martner's "Mahler's Concerts" (say that fast three times!) have led me to the conclusion that Mahler was perfectly capable of compartmentalizing his personal life when he needed to do so. He was a workaholic, and that ability to 'compartmentalize' has to be a hallmark of those who are. Compare the musical facts of his life against the more personal, 'biographical' ones. Fischer does nothing to dispel the notion that Mahler's life and his music were one and the same thing. Do you really feel that Mahler's cataclysmic 6th symphony is about nothing more than his insecurities and personal problems? I don't buy that - I don't buy that for a moment. Maybe that's the point where I depart from Fischer and others. Few commentators discuss the extent to which political and social issues must have colored Mahler's music as well. They act as though Mahler lived his life in vacuum. I don't buy that.

All this said, there's no doubt that Fischer is far better at covering the biographical details of Mahler's life than anybody outside of Henri De la Grange. But I also feel that prospective buyer's should be aware of the general tone and tendencies of Fischer's book as well.