Gustav Mahler: A Life in Crisis

Psychiatrist Feder (Charles Ives: My Father's Song) proves himself adept at delineating the emotional themes of Mahler's life and compositions in this psychoanalytic biography. Central to the project is a four-hour session that Mahler had with Sigmund Freud (""He had strong obsessions,"" Freud later wrote) in 1910, after the composer learned of wife Alma's affair with the architect Walter Gropius. But Feder looks at Mahler's life and works through the prism of psychoanalysis throughout the volume (""Mahler coveted gifted Gentile goddesses, but he had a strong need to hold them at bay""), suggesting that ""autobiographical sources were symbolized in Mahler's music rather than blatantly represented."" Feder connects what he identifies as crises in Mahler's life, such as the youthful deaths of several of his siblings and his troubled marriage to the beautiful, depressed Alma, to particular musical themes and works. Leder gives short shrift to Mahler's professional triumphs and their influence on his music, and lay readers may find his prose too full of psychoanalytic jargon. Nevertheless, this is an interesting and idiosyncratic look at a man who once wrote, ""My whole life is contained in my first two symphonies.... To anyone who knows how to listen my whole life will become clear.""