Schoenberg's Correspondence With Alma Mahler

A fresh perspective on two well-known personalities, Schoenberg's Correspondence with Alma Mahler documents a modern music friendship beginning in fin-de-si?cle Vienna and ending in 1950s Los Angeles. This volume is the first English-language edition of the complete extant correspondence in new English translations from the original German, many from new transcriptions of handwritten originals, and it is the first English-language book of Schoenberg's correspondence with a female associate. These often quite candid letters afford readers a fascinating glimpse into the personalities, ideologies, institutions, protocols, and aesthetics of early twentieth-century European music culture. Critics, conductors, composers, and visual artists are appraised, kindly or venomously; visual artists and writers also appear. Above all, Alma Mahler (1879-1964) and Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) emerge as intriguing, complex individuals who transcend their conventional representations as, respectively, a femme fatale and a musical radical. For Schoenberg, Alma was a sympathetic confidante, a comrade in their shared battle against musical conservatism, yet also a canny negotiator of Vienna's social circles, a skill that brought Schoenberg into contact with important patrons. Not only did he invite Alma to his premieres, lectures, and art exhibitions, but Schoenberg also sent her scores of his music and drafts of his writings. He revealed to her his plans for his innovative new music society, the Society for Private Music Performances, and his development of a new method of composition with twelve tones. The letters remind us of how crucial the social and personal dimensions of music culture were to the early twentieth-century composers and musicians. Gender, ethnicity, and social class conditioned their opportunities in music---and in life---and their shared experience of fleeing fascism to a new country with a different culture and language resonates with our own epoch.

Auteur

Elizabeth L. Keathley researches the nexus of gender and modernity in 20th- and 21st-century music cultures. She has published in journals and collections in Europe and the U.S. on topics including Schoenberg's Erwartung; modernist women performers and patrons; Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti; and Eminem's "murder ballads." She teaches Music History and Women's and Gender Studies at UNCG. Marilyn L. McCoy, a specialist in the music of Gustav Mahler, is a popular pre-concert lecturer who has spoken at many venues, including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall, and Boston's Symphony Hall. Her joint podcast with Aaron Cohen of New York Public Radio, "Embracing Everything: The World of Gustav Mahler," debuts in 2019. She teaches music history at Columbia University and Barnard College.

Résumé
A fresh perspective on two well-known personalities, Schoenberg's Correspondence with Alma Mahler documents a modern music friendship beginning in fin-de-sicle Vienna and ending in 1950s Los Angeles. This volume is the first English-language edition of the complete extant correspondence in new English translations from the original German, many from new transcriptions of handwritten originals, and it is the first English-language book of Schoenberg's correspondence with a female associate. These often quite candid letters afford readers a fascinating glimpse into the personalities, ideologies, institutions, protocols, and aesthetics of early twentieth-century European music culture. Critics, conductors, composers, and visual artists are appraised, kindly or venomously; visual artists and writers also appear. Above all, Alma Mahler (1879-1964) and Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) emerge as intriguing, complex individuals who transcend their conventional representations as, respectively, a femme fatale and a musical radical. For Schoenberg, Alma was a sympathetic confidante, a comrade in their shared battle against musical conservatism, yet also a canny negotiator of Vienna's social circles, a skill that brought Schoenberg into contact with important patrons. Not only did he invite Alma to his premieres, lectures, and art exhibitions, but Schoenberg also sent her scores of his music and drafts of his writings. He revealed to her his plans for his innovative new music society, the Society for Private Music Performances, and his development of a new method of composition with twelve tones. The letters remind us of how crucial the social and personal dimensions of music culture were to the early twentieth-century composers and musicians. Gender, ethnicity, and social class conditioned their opportunities in music---and in life---and their shared experience of fleeing fascism to a new country with a different culture and language resonates with our own epoch.

Contenu

Acknowledgements Abbreviations About the Companion Website Introduction: A Music Friendship of a Half Century Chapter One: 1903--1911 Frau Direktor---Early Compositions and New Aesthetics Chapter Two: 1911--1913 Berlin Again---Witwe Mahler Chapter Three: 1914--1915 "In This Great Time" Chapter Four: 1916--1917 Alma M. Gropius---Military Service, New Teaching Opportunities Chapter Five: 1918--1923 Mödling and the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen---Italian Sojourns Chapter Six: 1924--1938 Professional Recognition, Remarriages, Catastrophe Chapter Seven: 1939--1951 Finale and Homecoming Bibliography Index