Why Mahler?

by Lebrecht, Norman

• ISBN13: 9780375423819
• ISBN10: 0375423818
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-10-12
• Publisher: Pantheon

Summary

Although Gustav Mahler was a famous conductor in Vienna and New York, the music that he wrote was condemned during his lifetime and for many years after his death in 1911. "Pages of dreary emptiness," sniffed a leading American conductor. Yet today, almost one hundred years later, Mahler has displaced Beethoven as a box-office draw and exerts a unique influence on both popular music and film scores. Mahlerrs"s coming-of-age began with such 1960s phenomena as Leonard Bernsteinrs"s boxed set of his symphonies and Luchino Viscontirs"s filmDeath in Venice,which used Mahlerrs"s music in its sound track. But that was just the first in a series of waves that established Mahler not just as a great composer but also as an oracle with a personal message for every listener. There are now almost two thousand recordings of his music, which has become an irresistible launchpad for young maestros such as Gustavo Dudamel. Why Mahler? Why does his music affect us in the way it does? Norman Lebrecht, one of the worldrs"s most widely read cultural commentators, has been wrestling obsessively with Mahler for half his life. Pacing out his every footstep from birthplace to grave, scrutinizing his manuscripts, talking to those who knew him, Lebrecht constructs a compelling new portrait of Mahler as a man who lived determinedly outside his own times. Mahler was-along with Picasso, Einstein, Freud, Kafka, and Joyce-a maker of our modern world. Mahler dealt with issues I could recognize," writes Lebrecht, "with racism, workplace chaos, social conflict, relationship breakdown, alienation, depression, and the limitations of medical knowledge. Why Mahler? is a book that shows how music can change our lives.

Author Biography

NORMAN LEBRECHT is the author of many books about music, including the international best sellers The Maestro Myth and Who Killed Classical Music? He is a music columnist for the London Evening Standard, a cultural commentator on Bloomberg.com, and presenter of The Lebrecht Interview series on BBC Radio 3 in Great Britain. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Desperately Seeking Mahler	p. vii
Why Mahler?
Some Frequently Asked Questions	p. 3
Who is Mahler?: The Life and Times
Living in a Nowhere Land (1860-1875)	p. 21
City of Dreams (1875-1887)	p. 34
A Symphony Like the World (1887-1891)	p. 46
Rise Again (1891-1894)	p. 58
What Love Tells Me (1895-1897)	p. 72
A Taste of Power (1897-1900)	p. 86
The Most Beautiful Girl in Vienna (1901)	p. 103
Small Interludes of Happiness (1902-1906)	p. 121
Three Hammerblows (1907)	p. 140
Discovering America (1907-1910)	p. 152
"To Live for You, To Die for You" (1910-1911)	p. 177
After Mahler (1911-2010)	p. 198
Whose Mahler?
A Question of Interpretation	p. 211
How To Mahler
Finding the Key to a Private Space	p. 261
Acknowledgments	p. 265
Notes	p. 269
Bibliography	p. 293
Index	p. 305
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