This is a series of reminisces about Gustav Mahler, written by the famous (for example Freud and Schoenberg) and by the obscure, from intimates of the composer inner circle, to casual acquaintances (the most causal must be that of Sir Rudolf Bing who described a childhood meeting with Mahler 'thrashing though the woods, singing, looking almost demented'). Interestingly Mahler's widow Alma, the source of much sometimes questionable biographic material, is deliberately under represented. With this type of material there are obviously contradictions, for example one source (Alma in this case) says that Mahler would never play her unfinished pieces, whilst a few pages later another reports how Mahler overcame his reluctance and played her some of an unfinished piece. Mahler himself comes over as an intense and driven man, unable to accept anything less than the ideal, to paraphrase one source 'an angel and a devil in one'. As a fan of Mahler's music (why else would I read this book) I was interested in the descriptions of his performance of his own works, and by a description of the conducting of Bruno Walter as 'coming near to it' (Mahler's performance), but lacking 'Mahler's intensity and breathtaking power in building up a climax'.
Faber & Faber, 322 pages