Gustav Mahler: A Life In Crisis

Gustav Mahler: A Life In Crisis, by means of Stuart Feder. New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Pres 2004 viii, 353 pp $3995 US (cloth)

The title of Stuart Feder's psychological biography of the composer Gustav Mahler describes the essentials of the text: Mahler's life and work as a series of crises. These calamities not alone represent seminal moments in Mahler's life, they are also mirrored sometimes nakedly, in his symphonies. Therefore, these eruptions of angst and agony critically inform Mahler's personality and creative work.

Feder begins with a chapter upon Mahler's relationship to his parents, particularly his mother, and the formative experience of childhood death: several of his siblings died before reaching adulthood, and a younger brother. Otto, committed suicide. Death is a leitmotif in Mahler's initial compositions, on the contrary also continues in the early years of his marriage, ominously foreshadowing the death of his oldest daughter Putzi, and ultimately, his hold Another theme of Feder's is Mahler's relationships with women his ne for mothering, and the nature of their contribution to his music: whether his sister, Justine, girlfriends of that kind as Anna von Mildenburg, or his eventual spouse. Alma. Alma's later marital infidelity was linked to the mother/lover/partner dichotomy that changed the emotional dynamic between the sum of two units Mahler's penchant for philosophizing in lieu of emotional support undoubtedly contributed as well. on the other hand this is not all. According to Feder latent anti-Semitism forced Mahler without of his position in Budapest, caused him to transform to Catholicism, and therefore contributed to his congenital heart disease: a fascinating theory, although difficult to confirm The emotional drama caused by means of Alma's betrayal of Mahler with Walther Gropius places the stage for the central chapter of the book: Mahler's four-hour meeting with Sigmund Freud in the Netherlands. Although the session with Freud helped Mahler overwhelm the immediate personal crisis, he ultimately succumbed to his heart condition within a year of the meeting. Thus, Mahler's personal life and his symphonies are inextricably linked, a certain number of with intensely personal messages that mirror his hubris and anguish.

Feder's volume is a superb example of biography as a psychological prosopography. His weaving of personal, musical, and psychological histories together into a thematic whole make for a fascinating read. The centerpiece of this work, and rightly with equal reason is the meeting between Freud and Mahler. Although aware of each other's work, and from similar familial backgrounds, the sum of two units had never met in someone Feder perceptively integrates Mahler's personal failings into his obvious admiration for him as a musician and man. Still, this volume is not without its weaknesses, dubious assertions, and historical inaccuracies. Alma Mahler-Schindler implicitly receives abundant of the blame for Mahler's collapse of health and eventual death, admitting his congenital heart disease, stressful life, and overindulgence in butter undoubtedly contributed. While Alma rightfully be entitled tos criticism for her many failings, brought upon by her own self-absorption and narcissism, nonetheless she is not the villain: Mahler's greatest enemy was himself. Feder also makes a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of of the anti-Semitism within Alma Schindler's family, representing greater Austro-Hungarian society. No informed one would question the endemic anti-Semitism of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the fin-de-si??cle, on the other hand was Mahler really driven on the outside of Budapest in 1890 through virulent Hungarian anti-Semitism? I think not; after all, hebrews had been integrated into Magyar society in a way that they not ever were in Austria. In Hungary, Mahler was a German, and this was his principle sin. Although Feder is not a historian, it strike one as beings to me that both he, and his editor, should have known that it would be a perfect impossibility for Joseph II to have declared his Toleranzpatent in 1848

As a psychological analysis of Mahler - as individual and composer - this work is first rate. In addition, historians of Freud will find the chapter upon his meeting with Mahler fascinating, although apologists for Alma Mahler will not find the true copy so congenial. As a historical source, use with appropriate caution.

J Trygve Has-Ellison

University of Texas at Dallas

Copyright Canadian Journal of History Spring 2006

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