| Uniform title | Gustav Mahler. English |
| Contents |
Volume 2. Vienna: the years of challenge (1897-1904). May-July 1897. Vienna and Viennese music ; Conditions at the opera -- July-September 1897. Substitute director ; Opening of the new season ; The opera under Jahn ; First reforms -- September 1897-February 1898. Official appointment ; First productions ; Conflicts with Leoncavallo -- March-December 1898. First philharmonic concerts ; First battles at the opera ; The Ring and Der Freischutz -- January-May 1899. New anti-Semitic campaign ; Second philharmonic season ; The second symphony in Liege and Vienna -- May-December 1899. War with the administration ; Difficulties with the singers ; Alt-Aussee, the fourth symphony -- December 1899-April 1900. Fresh anti-Semitic attacks ; Richter's departure ; Beethoven's ninth symphony ; Hirschfeld's declaration of war -- April-August 1900. Venice ; Paris ; Maiernigg ; Completion of the fourth symphony ; Gutheil-Schoder joins the Hofoper -- August-December 1900. Quarrel with the Buhnenverein ; Triumph of the second symphony in Munich ; Failure of the first in Vienna ; Beginning of the third season of the philharmonic -- January-August 1901. Premiere of Das klagende Lied ; Illness and operation ; Resignation from the philharmonic ; The fifth symphony and the Ruckert-Lieder -- September-December 1901. Correspondence with Strauss ; Arrival of Bruno Walter ; Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor and Les Contes d'Hoffmann ; Premiere of the fourth symphony -- December 1901-January 1902. Alma Schindler ; Mahler in love ; Engagement -- January-June 1902. Strauss and Feuersnot ; The fourth symphony in Vienna ; Marriage and journey to Russia ; Beethoven exhibition at the secession ; Premiere of the third symphony: the Krefeld triumph -- June 1902-April 1903. Concerts in the Rhineland ; First marital storms ; The first Roller collaboration: Roller's Tristan ; Premiere of Louise -- April-December 1903. Triumph in Basel ; Contract with Peters ; The sixth symphony completed ; First trip to Holland -- January-September 1904. Der Waffenschmied, Euryanthe, Der Corregidor, Falstaff ; Mannheim, Heidelberg, Prague, Mainz, Cologne ; Encounters with Hauptmann, Bahr, Hofmannsthal ; Schoenberg, Zemlinsky, and the Vereinigung ; Birth of Anna ; Completion of the sixth symphony and the Kindertotenlieder -- Appendix 2. Detailed history and analysis of works completed between 1898 and 1904. |
| Contents |
Volume 3. Vienna: triumph and disillusion (1904-1907). August-December 1904: Fidelio ; First performance of the fifth symphony ; Second journey to Holland ; Mahler as diplomat ; The third symphony in Leipzig and Vienna -- Mahler in Vienna (XVIII). January-March 1905: Das Rheingold ; Mahler and Viennese society ; Premiere of the Kindertotenlieder ; Meeting with Webern ; End of the Vereinigung ; The fifth in Dresden, Berlin, Prague, and Hamburg -- Mahler in Vienna (XIX). March-May 1905: Pfitzner in Vienna ; Die Rose vom Liebesgarten ; The Strasbourg festival -- Mahler in Vienna (XX). June-December 1905: The Graz festival ; Correspondence with Cosima Wagner ; Completion of the seventh symphony ; The battle for Salome ; The second symphony in Berlin: Oskar Fried ; The fifth in Trieste, Vienna, and Breslau ; Preparation of the Mozart year -- Mahler in Vienna (XXI). ecember 1905-April 1906: The Mozart year ; Cosi fan tutte and Don Giovanni ; Die Entfuhrung and Figaro ; The Magic Flute ; Antwerp and Amsterdam concerts ; Mahler as administrator, stage director, and conductor -- Mahler in Venna (XXII). May-August 1906: Salome in Graz ; Premiere of the sixth ; Composition of the Eighth ; Salzburg festival ; Mahler in his maturity -- Mahler in Vienna (XXIII). September 1906-January 1907: Caruso in Vienna ; Le Juif polonaise ; The Barber of Seville ; The Taming of the Shrew ; The sixth in Berlin, Munich, and Vienna ; The third in Breslau and Graz -- Mahler in Vienna (XXIV). January-March 1907: The third in Berlin ; Encounters with Strauss ; The fourth in Frankfurt ; The first in Linz ; The press campaign against Mahler ; Die Walkure and Iphigenie en Aulide ; Messchaert's recitals ; Schoenberg premieres -- Mahler in Vienna (XXV). March-August 1907: Grete Wiesenthal and La Muette de Portici ; Roller and the ballet ; Journey to Rome ; Final opera productions ; Mahler's departure from the opera ; Putzi's death ; Diagnosis of heart ailment -- Mahler in Vienna (XXVI). August-December 1907: Weingartner is appointed ; The Vienna opera after Mahler ; Opening of the new season ; Journeys to Russia and Finland ; Farewell to Vienna -- Appendix 2. Detailed history and analysis of the works composed between 1904 and 1907 -- Appendix 3. The Vienna opera in Mahler's time -- Appendix 4. Two letters of Seigfried Lipiner addressed to Mahler -- Appendix 5. Analysis of Alma Mahler's handwriting. |
| Contents |
Volume 4. A new life cut short (1907-1911). Mahler in New York (I). January-February 1908: Discovering the new world ; New York in 1908 ; The Metropolitan Opera and Heinrich Conried ; Tristan and Don Giovanni -- Mahler in New York (II). March-August 1908: The end of the season at the Metropolitan ; Die Walkure, Siegfried, and Fidelio ; Philadelphia and Boston ; Return to Europe ; Concerts in Wiesbaden and Prague ; Toblach and Das Lied von der Erde -- Mahler in New York (III). September-December 1908: Premiere of the seventh symphony ; Concerts in Munich and Hamburg ; Return to New York ; Concerts with the symphony ; Opening of the Metropolitan season -- Mahler in New York (IV). January-June 1909: Figaro and Bartered Bride ; Farewell to the Metropolitan ; The New York Philharmonic ; Two weeks in Paris: Rodin ; Contract with Universal Edition ; Schoenberg and Varese -- Mahler in New York (V). June-December 1909: Summer in Toblach ; The ninth symphony ; The last journey to the Netherlands ; The New York Philharmonic -- Mahler in New York (VI). January-March 1910: Social life there ; Second half of the first philharmonic session ; Busoni as soloist ; The Weiss scandal ; At the Met: Pique Dame ; Tour of New England ; Mahler interviewed -- Mahler in New York (VII). April-July 1910: Back in Europe ; The second symphony in Paris ; Disaster in Rome ; Rehearsals for the eighth symphony in Vienna, Leipzig, and Munich -- Mahler in New York (VIII). July-August 1910: Alma's betrayal ; The tragic summer of 1910 ; The tenth symphony ; Consultation with Freud -- Mahler in New York (IX). September-December 1910: Munich: triumph of the eighth symphony ; Vienna, autumn of 1910 ; Paintings by Schoenberg ; The second philharmonic season ; Tour of the great lakes ; The holidays in New York -- Mahler in New York (X). January-February 1911: Plans for the next season ; Mahler conducts a revised fourth ; Crisis with the guarantors' committee ; Mahler and the New York philharmonic: a final assessment -- Epilogue. 21 February-18 May 1911: Mahler's illness and death ; New York-Paris-Vienna -- Appendices. Das Lied von der Erde: a symphony for tenor and alto (or baritone) voice and orchestra (1908) ; The ninth symphony in D major (1909) ; The unfinished tenth symphony in F sharp (1910) ; Works revised by Mahler: symphonic works ; Works revised by Mahler: operas ; Apocryphal work: a symphonic prelude by Mahler? ; Unfinished works and sketches: three unknown sketches ; The sketchbook in the Mildenburg collection ; Why did Mahler not write an opera? ; Transcriptions and arrangements of Mahler's works ; How to approach Mahler's art / Georg Gohler ; The sixth symphony (order of movements) ; Soloists who played or sang in Mahler's concerts; cities where he conducted concerts, and his concert repertoire ; Programmes prepared by Mahler for the New York Philharmonic and conducted during his last illness by Theodore Spiering ; The orchestra and its instruments in Mahler's time ; Mahler as a performer of his own works (the piano rolls and their transfer to disc) ; After Mahler's death: letters of condolence ; Obituary articles ; Freud on Mahler (in Marie Bonaparte's diary), original German version ; A performance history of Mahler's works ; The survival of Alma's collection after the bombing of her house on the Hohe Warte ; Mahler mythomania ; Mahler's posthumous triumph in America: Stokowski's 1916 performances of the eighth symphony ; Poems copied by Mahler ; A dedication in verse to Countess Wydenbruck's daughter ; Following Mahler's track ; Mahler's beliefs (Fechner and Hartmann) ; Rodin's three busts of Mahler ; Relative value of currencies in Mahler's time ; Alma Mahler: a chronology of her life after Mahler's death 1911-1964 ; Alma Mahler's lieder ; Recipe for Mahler's favourite dessert: Marillenknodel (apricot dumplings). |
| Abstract |
Gustav Mahler was one of the supremely gifted musicians of his generation. His contemporaries came to know him as a composer of startling originality whose greatest successes with the public never failed to provoke controversy among the critics. As a conductor, his relentless pursuit of perfection was sometimes viewed as tyrannical by the singers and musicians who came under his baton. The author has devoted more than thirty years of painstaking research to this study of Mahler's life and works. His biography, ultimately to be completed in four volumes, is drawn from a vast archive of documents, autographs, and pictures, assembled by La Grange at the Bibliotheque musicale Gustav Mahler, Paris. The second volume covers the years 1897-1904, when the focus shifts to Vienna. It opens with Mahler's triumphant debut as director of the Vienna Court Opera, and follows with the revolution he wrought in standards of performance and, with the Secessionist painter Alfred Roller, in scenic representation. An account is also given of Mahler's stormy and brief engagement as conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Concerts, following Richter's resignation in 1898. La Grange depicts the brilliant society of pre-war Vienna, then the centre of the intellectual and artistic world; the extraordinary range of artists among whom Mahler lived and worked included the composers Dvorak, Gustave Charpentier, Richard Strauss, Zemlinsky, and Schoenberg and his two disciples, Berg and Webern; the painters, architects, and decorators of the Secession with Klimt at their head; the writers Hauptmann, Dehmel, Hofmannsthal, and Schnitzler.There he also met Alma Schindler, 'the most beautiful woman in Vienna', and La Grange tells the story of their engagement and marriage in 1902 and the early years of their tempestuous relationship. As his fame spread throughout Europe, Mahler travelled with his music to Germany, Russia, Holland, Poland, and Belgium, meeting many other leading musicians of his day, including Pfitzner, Mengelberg, Diepenbrock, Oskar Fried, and many others. During this period Mahler wrote some of his best-loved works, including the Fourth and Fifth symphonies, and the three orchestral song-cycles and collections - the Wunderhorn-, Ruckert-, and Kindertotenlieder. For each of these works La Grange provides full notes and analytical descriptions. |
| General note | Revised, enlarged, and updated translation of the French edition published in 3 volumes: Paris : Fayard, c1979-c1984. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| LCCN | 94018322 |
| ISBN | 0193151596 (v. 2 : acid-free paper) |
| ISBN | 019315160X (v. 3 : acid-free paper) |
