Recollections of Gustav Mahler

(Paperback, Main)

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First published in English in 1980, this important early memoir of Gustav Mahler is by Natalie Bauer-Lechner (1858-1921), a viola player and close and devoted friend of Mahler until his marriage to Alma Schindler in 1902. She visited him in Hamburg and frequented his circle in Vienna, also accompanying him and his family on a number of the summer vacations during which the Second, Third and Fourth Symphonies came into being, together with many of the Wunderhorn songs. Compiled from Bauer-Lechner's private journal, these Recollections are a vital, invaluable record of Mahler's personal, professional and creative life during the last decade of the nineteenth century. A large part of the book recounts, at first hand, conversations with Mahler concerning his works and his ideas about performance (both in the opera-house and on the concert platform.)

Author Bio

Natalie Bauer-Lechner (1858-1921) was a viola-player who is best known to musicology for having been a close and devoted friend of Gustav Mahler in the period between the break-up of her marriage in 1890 and the start of his to Alma Schindler in 1902. During this period, she kept a private journal which provides a unique picture of Mahler's personal, professional and creative life during and just after his thirties, including an exclusive preview of the structure, form, and content of his third symphony.