After much stewing over the issues, I've settled on giving this book four stars out of five.
"Better at Mahler's early years than his late N.Y. period", November 11, 2011
By B. Guerrero "Mahler nutcase"
This review is from: Gustav Mahler (Hardcover)
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.
Topic: my Amazon customer review of Fischer Mahler biography (Read 5833 times)