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Gustav Mahler, Vol. 4: A New Life Cut Short, 1907-1911 | 
 enlarge | Author: Henry-louis De La Grange
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $140.00
Buy New: $92.92
You Save: $47.08 (34%)
New (28) Used (10) from $80.65
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 59285
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1072
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.8
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.5 x 3
ISBN: 0198163878
Dewey Decimal Number: 780.92
EAN: 9780198163879
ASIN: 0198163878
Publication Date: April 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: New & Shrinkwrapped. In stock - Immediate despatch from an efficient and professional leading British bookselling firm.
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Product Description
When the earlier volumes of de La Grange's monumental study of Gustav Mahler appeared, they were hailed across America--in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and many other publications--as an indispensable portrait of one of the greatest figures in the history of music. Here at last is the final volume of this magisterial work.
The fourth volume illuminates the composer's American period, when he was conductor for the Metropolitan Opera in New York. It contains a treasure trove of new material, in particular many unknown letters from Alma Mahler to her lover, Walter Gropius, and many articles and interviews about the composer and the performances he conducted while in New York. This detailed biography of the composer also includes new and valuable insights into the final year of his life, when he returned to Europe to die.
The crowning point of a decades-long project, during which the author has personally translated each volume from his original French into English, this scrupulously researched and insightfully written biography brings to a triumphant close the definitive account of Mahler's life and work.
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A Giant September 15, 2008
All my life I have loved Mahler's music. As a young man I visited his grave in Vienna and left flowers. I have read all of the de la Grange volumes, and the final one is his greatest.Surely there must be some international prize for his great biography.
BRILLIANT AND A CELEBRATION FOR ALL MAHLER LOVERS August 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
FINALLY THE LAST VOLUME OF THE FOUR-PART PROJECT HAS APPEARED.THIS VOLUME DEALS MAINLY WITH THE COMPOSER'S LIFE IN THE UNITED STATES.
THIS GIGANTIC TOME HAS 1758 PAGES; 1277 OF THEM CONTAIN THE TEXT AND THE OTHERS ARE A COLLECTION OF 33 VARIOUS APPENDICES.( IN ONE OF THEM- THE LAST ONE YOU CAN ALSO GET A RECIPE ABOUT MAHLER'S FAVOURITE DESSERT: APRICOTE DUMPLINGS)
IT IS A SUPERB DELIGHT TO READ IT AND RE-READ IT AND LA GRANGE HAS DONE A SUPERB JOB IN RESEARCHING AND DISPELLING A NUMBER OF OLD MYTHS REGARDING THE COMPOSER.IF WE THOUGHT THAT MAHLER WAS A DICTATOR WHO WAS EXTREMELY HARSH ON HIS PLAYERS WHEREVER THEY WERE,WE WERE WRONG.MAHLER WANTED AND DEMANDED PERFECTION AND THIS FACT EXPLAINED PART OF THE ALMOST MISTAKEN NOTION ABOUT HIS SO-CALLED TYRANNY.
IN THIS VOLUME WE HAVE DESCRIPTIONS ABOUT THE MANY TRIPS MAHLER AND HIS TREACHEOUS WIFE,ALMA,TOOK MAINLY TO NEW YORK. WE GET A BROAD-CANVASSED DEPICTION AND MANY FACTS- SOME OF THEM UNKNOWN TO THE AVERAGE READER- ABOUT NEW YORK AND THE NEW YORK ARISTOCRACY AS WELL AS THE BENEFACTORS WHO DONATED HUGE SUMS OF MONEY SO THAT MAHLER BE KNOWN AND RECOGNIZED IN THE USA.IN FACT, THIS BOOK IS A MAHLER ENCYCLOPEDIA AND THE READER CAN FIND HERE ALMOST ANYTHING HE WANTS ABOUT MAHLER AND THE PERTINENT HISTORICAL BACKGROUND.
WHOLE CHAPTERS ARE DEVOTED TO SOME CRITICS-SOME HAD A POSITIVE ATTITUDE TO MAHLER AND A MINORTIY POURED OUT THEIR VENOM ON HIM.MAHLER LIKED AND LOVED AMERICA AND HAD A TREMENDOUS RESPECT FOR THE NEW WORLD.HIS BEST FRIEND THERE WAS FERRUCIO BUSONI AND THEY REMAINED FRIENDS UNTIL MAHLER'S LAST BREATH.
THIS WAS ALSO THE PERIOD WHEN MAHLER COMPOSED HIS MAMMOTH EIGHT SYMPHONY AND LA GRANGE SUPPLIES US WITH MANY UNKNOWN DETAILS AND NEW INFO ABOUT THE WAY MAHLER COMPOSED AND REHEARSED HIS CREATION.WE SEE HOW SENSITIVE MAHLER WAS AND THE WAY HE TOOK CARE OF HIS FRIENDS IN NEED, AND THE MOST OUTSTANDING EXAMPLE IS THE HELP HE EXTENDED TO HIS NEEDY AND MUCH MUSICALLY -OSTRACIZED FRIEND ARNOLD SCHOENBERG.
CHAPTER EIGHT IS ABOUT ALMA'S ILLICIT RELATIONSHIP WITH WALTER GROPIUS, THE ARCHITECT. HERE LA GRANGE TELLS US THAT HE HAD THE PRIVILEGE OF EXAMINING A BULK OF HOUSANDS OF LETTERS SENT BY ALMA TO GROPIUS AND VICE VERSA. EVERYTHING WAS DONE BY MEANS OF POST RESTANTE WITH ALMA MOTHER'S COLLUSION.THUS LA GRANGE MANAGES TO ESCHEW ALMA'S DISTORTED TALES ABOUT THE WHOLE AFFAIR.MAHLER'S AGONY ABOUT HIS WIFE'S AFFAIR WAS EXPRESSED IN ONE OF HIS INSCRIPTIONS WHILE IN THE MIDDLE OF COMPOSING THE UNFINISHED TENTH SYMPHONY.HIS TRIP TO HOLLAND WHERE THE MASTER MET FREUD AND WAS ANALYZED BY HIM IS FURTHER AND FRESHLY EXAMINED WITH THE HELP OF MARIA BONAPARTE'S DIARY.
THE FINAL PART IS ABOUT MAHLER'S ILLNESS , THE TRIP BACK TO EUROPE -VIA FRANCE -AND THE AGONIES HE SUFFERED IN THE VIENNA SANATORIUM UNTIL HE DIED. HE WANTED A MOST SIMPLE BURIAL AND EXPRESSED HIS WISH TO NEIGHBOUR HIS DEAD DAUGHTER IN GRINZING.HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE WERE WAITING IN THE POURING RAIN TO EXTEND THEIR LAST RESPECT FOR THE MUSICAL COLOSSUS. A BIRD SANG A DISJOINTED SPRINGTIME MELODY AND ONE OF HIS FRIENDS WAS REMINDED OF THE FINAL MOVEMENT OF MAHLER'S SECOND SYMPHONY.
MAHLER'S FUNERAL TOOK PLACE ON MAY, 22, 1911. HIS OWN PREDICTION THAT HIS TIME WOULD COME WAS PROVEN TO BE RIGHT.
WHEN YOU LOOK AROUND TODAY AND SEE THOUSANDS OF ARTICLES BEING WRITTEN ABOUT HIM,HUNDREDS OF RECORDINGS AND PERFORMANCES ALL AROUND THE WORLD,THESES AND PH.D'S, DISCUSSIONS ON THE INTERNET AND VARIOUS MAHLER MEMORABILIA AND TENS OF THOUSANDS OF MAHLERITES EVERYWHERE- ONLY THEN CAN YOU UNDERSTAND HOW THIS TOWERING GENIUS IS APPRECIATED AND WILL DEFINITELY BE IN THE FUTURE.THE 2011 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS ARE AWAITING AS WELL.
LA GRANGE HAS DONE AN EXCELLENT JOB AND IN SPITE OF THE LENGTH OF HIS BOOK- I CAN ONLY SAY ONE WORD ABOUT IT:BRILLIANT!
LET US ALL HOPE THIS HIS PROMISE TO REVISE HIS FIRST VOLUME WILL NOT TAKE SO MANY YEARS IT TOOK TO WRITE THE FINAL ONE.
 For Dedicated Mahlerites Only July 9, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I was very glad to see this final volume finally come out. It is extremely detailed, well researched, and interesting. You learn a lot about New York in this period and many of the people who Mahler was involved with one way or the other: JP Morgan, Oscar Hammerstein, Walter Damrosch, Toscanini...and many, many more. The huge amount of research in presenting critical opinions of the time of his symphonies is fascinating, as is the status of orchestral concerts -- which weren't any better attended than those today! So any Mahler fan will enjoy this, but for most readers there are shorter one-volume biographies that should do nicely.
I only give this four stars because of the production. I wish I had kept track, but it's amazing how many typos there are in it. The author also needs a map of the US, since he mentions on a tour with the NY Philharmonic that from Pittsburgh they continue going east to Cleveland! And he frequently uses the word "alto" when he was refering to the viola. Worst of all was a paragraph that suddenly stops midsentence with blank white at the bottom of the page. The paragraph is repeated in its entirety on the next page. Then, there are many time when you have a sense of deja-vu: sometime information, even quotes, appear then reappear many pages later. I realize this is a vast, even monumental, achievement that will likely never be equalled, and that the staggering amount of information and length is a to praised, but still, I would expect the Oxford Press would do a better job of editing and proofreading. Maybe they figure that the 25 of us in the world who will actually read the book are worth worrying about.
One last complaint: I find the old, original Doubleday vol. 1 much easier to read. Why? It's on off-white paper. I don't know what color it is, but it's much easier on the eyes. The Oxford printing is severe black ink on extremely white paper and tires the eyes faster. On the other hand, I do like the Oxford presentation of footnotes being on the bottom of the pages rather than at the end, like Doubleday.
A Revisionist Take On Mahler's Final Years March 22, 2008
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
This final installment of Henry-Louis de La Grange's massive four volume biography advances the idea that Mahler was not a death-driven broken man in his final years; rather he was about to embark on a "new life" that was cut short by an unexpected illness. Thus the unfinished 10th Symphony should be heard as a new beginning whose final bars are a paean to love, not a farewell.
I will not pretend that I've read the entire book so soon after publication (it is actually 1758 pages! not the 1072 that Amazon lists). I will focus on the chapter that describes Alma Mahler's "betrayal": by doing so I will hopefully give an idea of rest of the book. The style of writing and presentation is identical to previous volumes. De La Grange assembles what seems to be every fact he could discover about Mahler and weaves them into a chronological narrative. The chapter covers July and August 1910 and is 118 small print pages long, including 411 footnotes of even smaller print. De La Grange quotes extensively from recently unearthed letters between Alma Mahler and the budding architect Walter Gropius (the lover with whom she betrayed Mahler) to further show how willfully deceiving Alma's published memoirs were about the affair. These give insight into the depth of Mahler's despair when he discovered what had happened through a letter that Gropius, in writing to Alma, mistakenly addressed to Mahler himself. De La Grange attempts to give an in-depth analysis of Alma's personality, quoting from unpublished diaries and letters. He also spends 40 pages on Mahler's interview with Sigmund Freud, quoting extensively from all the available sources in which Freud discussed the meeting, as well as present-day psychologists and analysts who have commented on it. Though the psychologist sources he quotes apparently disagree, this does not prevent de La Grange from advocating his belief that Mahler emerged from this crisis a stronger, more life-affirming artist - not as many would like to believe, a broken man.
Following de La Grange's narrative, filled as it is with what one might describe as excruciating detail and exhaustive psychological analysis, can be daunting, but he does manage to keep the narrative flowing. The recitation of fact after detailed fact, as in the other volumes, can be numbing, but one is drawn completely into Mahler's world during the process. This kind of total immersion may not be what the average reader wants, but it is exactly suited to a Mahler freak. And a Mahler freak is whom this book is for.
The bulk of the book (1277 pages) is devoted to the narrative of Mahler's life during these final years. There are 440 pages of appendices and a 35 page index. The appendices include 236 pages of detailed analysis of Das Lied von der Erde and the 9th and 10th Symphonies, an updated catalogue of works, a list of all of all the performances of non-operatic repertoire conducted by Mahler (one wonders why the operas weren't included), essays on the Mahler piano rolls, the order of movements in the 6th symphony, Mahler myths, and the recipe for Mahler's favorite dessert (to list just a few).
While this is the long awaited volume IV of the biography, de La Grange assures us in his introduction that the revision to volume I (published in 1973 and out-of-print) is soon forthcoming: "readers of this biography may be confident that they will not have to wait as long for the new Volume I as they have had to for Volume IV."
My only negative comment regarding this long anticipated volume is the price - nearly 10 times more than what I paid in 1973 for the first volume.
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