Mahler

This course focuses on the career of composer and conductor Gustav Mahler, including detailed discussions of his symphonies and song cycles as well as his influence as a conductor. The course also examines fin de siècle Vienna, including musical feuds between Brahms, Bruckner, and Hugo Wolf. And how can we ignore Vienna’s most glamorous personality, Alma Mahler (née Schindler) whose diaries are Vienna’s looking glass? Providing context, such spectacular personalities as Gustav Klimt and Sigmund Freud are discussed alongside Mahler as exemplars of an emerging modernist ethos.

Printable Syllabus

Books

Quasi Una Fantasia: Essays on Modern Music (The Verso Classics Series) by Theodor W. Adorno

Mahler: A Biography by Jonathan Carr

Gustav Mahler: an Introduction to His Music by Deryck Cooke

Vindications : Essays on Romantic Music by Deryck Cooke

Gustav Mahler: The Symphonies by Constantin Floros

German Modernism: Music and the Arts (California Studies in 20th-Century Music) by Walter Frisch

Mahler: The Man and His Music by Egon Gartenberg

Mahler A Biography Volume One by Henry-Louis De La Grange

Gustav Mahler, Vol. 2: Vienna: The Years of Challenge, 1897-1904  by Henry-Louis de La Grange

Gustav Mahler, Vol. 3: Vienna: Triumph and Disillusion, 1904-1907  by Henry-Louis De La Grange

Gustav Mahler, Vol. 4: A New Life Cut Short, 1907-1911 by Henry-Louis De La Grange 

Conversations with Klemperer  by Peter Heyworth

Bruckner Remembered (Composers remembered series) by Stephen Johnson

Symphonic Metamorphoses: Subjectivity and Alienation in Mahler's Re-Cycled Songs. (Classical Composers) (Book Review): An article from: Notes by Eftychia Papanikolaou

Mahler Remembered by Norman Lebrecht

Alma Mahler-Werfel: Diaries, 1898-1902 by Alma Mahler-Werfel

Gustav Mahler: The Early Years (Vol 1) by Donald Mitchell

Gustav Mahler: The Wunderhorn Years (v. 2) by Donald Mitchell

The Mahler Companion from Oxford University Press, USA

Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg by Dika Newlin

Mahler and His World (The Bard Music Festival) from Princeton University Press

Bruno Walter: A World Elsewhere by Erik Ryding, Rebecca Pechefsky

Style and Idea: Selected Writings by Arnold Schoenberg

Hugo Wolf a Biography Revised, Complete Edition by Frank Walker

Bruckner (Master Musicians) by Derek Watson