Belive it or not, the Walmart link popped-up first when I did a Google search.
I now know that this is old news, but I thought it would be good for me to do a quick 'copy & paste' of Yale Univ. Press' blurb on the book, and Fischer:
"A best seller when first published in Germany in 2003, Jens Malte Fischer's Gustav Mahler has been lauded by scholars as a landmark work. He draws on important primary resources—some unavailable to previous biographers—and sets in narrative context the extensive correspondence between Mahler and his wife, Alma; Alma Mahler's diaries; and the memoirs of Natalie Bauer-Lechner, a viola player and close friend of Mahler, whose private journals provide insight into the composer's personal and professional lives and his creative process.
Fischer explores Mahler's early life, his relationship to literature, his achievements as a conductor in Vienna and New York, his unhappy marriage, and his work with the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic in his later years. He also illustrates why Mahler is a prime example of artistic idealism worn down by Austrian anti-Semitism and American commercialism. Gustav Mahler is the best-sourced and most balanced biography available about the composer, a nuanced and intriguing portrait of his dramatic life set against the backdrop of early 20th century America and fin de siècle Europe.
Jens Malte Fischer is professor of the history of theater at the University of Munich. He writes regularly for leading German newspapers and periodicals and is the author of several books, including a documentary study of Wagner's anti-Semitism. He lives in Munich, Germany. Stewart Spencer is an acclaimed translator whose work includes biographies of Richard Wagner, Cosima Wagner, and W.A. Mozart, all published by Yale University Press."
I like it that Fischer includes material from N. Bauer-Lechner's memoirs. In my opinion, she was pretty much the only one who chronicled what Mahler had to say on very specific musical issues with any great detail. Mahler probably should have married Bauer-Lechner, but the ways of the heart are impossible to predict or control.
Then in one my great moments of great silliness, I see that I wrote my own very brief and to-the-point Biography of Mahler:
"Mahler was a cool dude who wrote AWESOME music! He wasn't always a saint, and could actually be quite grumpy, cantankerous, and moody. But, his closest friends really adored him. He was highly ambitious and yet, at times, overly sensitive. He did THE MOST to further orchestration techniques, and opened the doors for every Hollywood film score composer who ever came after him. I love his music, and anyone with a brain and strong ears should like his music too."
Thank you, thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you fan! - keep that card and letter coming.
. . . I amuse myself.
Topic: Anyone know about this Jens Malte Fischer bio. of Mahler? (link enclosed) (Read 10050 times)