Opera

Alma and Gustav Mahler: MARRIAGE IN SONGS

Gustav Mahler was perceived during his life as an excellent conductor and director of the Vienna Court Opera, but he did not achieve significant success as a composer. Today he is one of the most performed symphonic composers in concert halls, but his symphonies were created from his songs. It is less known that his wife Alma, who was almost 20 years younger, also composed songs. Their marriage was unequal not only in age. He - a powerful authoritative conductor and intendant, she - “Vienna’s most beautiful girl” fell in love with an aging Mahler at the age of 21. As a condition of marriage, he stipulated that she would not compose. Their 10-year marriage, marked by the death of her older daughter and Alma’s affair with Walter Gropius less than a year before Mahler’s death, will be known through the letters of Alma and Gustav and the memories of Alma Mahler, who survived by 53 years.

Alma Mahler on Gustav Mahler as a father:

“Every morning, our older daughter went to Mahler's office. They talked there for a long time. Nobody knows about what. I never interrupted the two. We had a meticulous Englishwoman who always brought the child clean and orderly to the door of the room. After a long time, Mahler came out, holding the child’s hand. Usually, however, she was already covered from head to toe in marmalade, so I first had to calm the Englishwoman down. But they were both so back and happy after their conversations that I was secretly happy about it. Like father, like daughter. Beautiful and defiant, at the same time inaccessible, she promised to be dangerous. Black curls, big blue eyes!”