Description
This second volume covers the years 1897-1904, when the focus shifts to Vienna. It opens with Mahler's triumphant debut as director of the Vienna Court Opera, and follows with the revolution he wrought in standards of performance and, with the Secessionist painter Alfred Roller, in scenic representation. An account is also given of Mahler's stormy and brief engagement as conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Concerts, following Richter's resignation in 1898. La Grange depicts the brilliant society of pre-war Vienna, then the centre of the intellectual and artistic world; the extraordinary range of artists among whom Mahler lived and worked included the composers Dvorak, Gustave Charpentier, Richard Strauss, Zemlinsky, and Schoenberg and his two disciples, Berg and Webern; the painters, architects, and decorators of the Secession with Klimt at their head; the writers Hauptmann, Dehmel, Hofmannsthal, and Schnitzler.
