The mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly has opened a new line of defence for Alma Mahler in today’s Guardian newspaper. 

Avoiding the feminist argument that Alma was the victim of male tyranny when she agreed to stop composing as a precondition for marrying Mahler, Connolly accepts that Alma was complicit in suppressing her creative urge. She could have refused the demand and sent Mahler packing. But so keen was her desire to be hitched to celebrity that she would have given up anything – almost – in order to become the first and only Mrs Mahler.
Connolly’s perception accords with the vivid truths to be found in Alma’s raw diaries, a far cry from the victim model that she presented in her Mahler memoirs, an image perpetuated by Ken Russell’s Mahler biodoc and many uncritical studies.
Alma’s urge to compose was not strong – she never wrote music again after Mahler died or when he, still alive, encouraged her to start again, as I describe in Why Mahler? She openly questions her need to compose in the diaries. Connolly takes the view that Alma’s cessation was unfortunate, not tragic. But she finds that the songs – which she will sing Sunday at the Barbican in orchestrations by Colin and David Matthews –  possess ‘a rare gift of melody.’ The are, she writes, ‘voluptuous, coquettish, Wagnerian in intensity and harmony yet intimate, sensual, charming and surprising’.
That’s quite a heavy load for these simple numbers to bear. Many hands have worked on her material, starting with her teacher (and lover) Zemlinsky, followed by Mahler, Schoenberg and Berg (who did not, as Connolly suggests, join Alma’s list of sexual conquests) and finished off with great skill and polish by the Matthews brothers whose faith in Alma’s powers is, I suspect, as qualified as my own.
There is no genius at work here. Alma’s gift is small and imitative. I struggle to find a phrase of striking originality in any of the 14 extant songs. She owes much to the underrated Zemlinsky and more to the decadent Zeitgeist. Connolly makes a careful case for her work, hedged with ambivalence. And that takes us close to the heart of the Alma problem.
Alma took a bilateral position on everything she touched, whether it was love, life or death. Her diaries often yield contradictory responses, as if she were both inside and outside a situation, unable to resolve her feelings. It was the ambiguity of her emotions that first drew me into Mahler’s world, a counterpoint to his emotional pile-drivers.
I shall listen to Connolly’s latest exhumation of her musical relics with intense, albeit sceptical, interest.
 

Eberhard Spree, a double-bass player in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, has uncovered a trove of Johann Sebastian Bach documents in an archive in the Freiberg district. 

The papers reveal Bach’s investment activities in the last decade of his life in a local silver mine. The prevailing image of the composer is that of a municipal employee who served as Cantor of St Thomas’s. It may be that he was more shrewd than scholars have previously credited.
Here’s the original report in German with a picture of the proud bassist.

The first English performance of Mahler’s second symphony was played, according to Donald Mitchell*, on April 16, 1931 at Queen’s Hall, London, conducted by Bruno Walter.

The second performance took place, under the same conductor, on October 1, 1949. Eighteen years seems an awfully long time to wait for a repeat. 
But see how times have changed. This Saturday night there will be two simultaneous concerts of the Resurrection symphony, one at the University of Bristol, conductor John Pickard, and the other, in south London, by the Philharmonia Britannica, conducted by Peter Fender.
Booking details:
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/music/events/2010/concert20101204 – and
info@ph-br.co.uk.
I was supposed to be introducing the Bristol concert but find myself otherwise engaged, escorting a group of Guardian readers with Why Mahler? in hand to Vladimir Jurowski’s London Philharmonic performance of Mahler’s first symphony at the Royal Festival Hall.
Tastes have changed. Mahler’s time has surely come.
——
* in Mitchell and Nicholson, The Mahler Companion (Oxford University Press), 1999. p551

The first English performance of Mahler’s second symphony was played, according to Donald Mitchell*, on April 16, 1931 at Queen’s Hall, London, conducted by Bruno Walter.

The second performance took place, under the same conductor, on October 1, 1949. Eighteen years seems an awfully long time to wait for a repeat. 
But see how times have changed. This Saturday night there will be two simultaneous concerts of the Resurrection symphony, one at the University of Bristol, conductor John Pickard, and the other, in south London, by the Philharmonia Britannica, conducted by Peter Fender.
Booking details:
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/music/events/2010/concert20101204 – and
info@ph-br.co.uk.
I was supposed to be introducing the Bristol concert but find myself otherwise engaged, escorting a group of Guardian readers with Why Mahler? in hand to Vladimir Jurowski’s London Philharmonic performance of Mahler’s first symphony at the Royal Festival Hall.
Tastes have changed. Mahler’s time has surely come.
——
* in Mitchell and Nicholson, The Mahler Companion (Oxford University Press), 1999. p551

This warming tale was on my screen this morning from David Snyder, in Buffalo, NY:

My wife, who is of Polish Catholic ancestry, and is still an active Catholic, heard of an anti-semitic incident in an American neighborhood. A Jewish family put a menorah in their front window and had a brick thrown through it. The neighborhood response was to install menorahs in front windows up and down the street. 

This wasn’t in our neighborhood, but she went out and bought a menorah, and every year (including this one) she displays it and lights the successive lights for Hanukah. I think this is a good answer to anyone who wonders about the appropriateness of holiday greetings. I hope you will wish her a Merry Christmas.

I will, indeed.

This warming tale was on my screen this morning from David Snyder, in Buffalo, NY:

My wife, who is of Polish Catholic ancestry, and is still an active Catholic, heard of an anti-semitic incident in an American neighborhood. A Jewish family put a menorah in their front window and had a brick thrown through it. The neighborhood response was to install menorahs in front windows up and down the street. 

This wasn’t in our neighborhood, but she went out and bought a menorah, and every year (including this one) she displays it and lights the successive lights for Hanukah. I think this is a good answer to anyone who wonders about the appropriateness of holiday greetings. I hope you will wish her a Merry Christmas.

I will, indeed.

Why Mahler? had some signings lined up at West End book stores today, only to find that Listen to This had either preceded him, or was about to follow.

‘We have more for you to sign than Mr Ross,’ said an encouraging manager at Foyles, one of my favourite boyhood haunts. Much smarter now than I remember it, though ringed by major construction works, Foyles feels like a place you would visit for easy pleasure, as well as urgent enlightenment. 
Miriam, a marketing manager from Colorado, had thoughtfully warmed up a room to unfreeze the author’s fingers. 36 copies were beautifully piled in a semi-circle. It was too early in the day for a single malt, but it was that kind of atmosphere. Here’s the Foyles website: http://www.foyles.co.uk/book-shops-in-london
Crossing Charing Cross Road, I dropped into Blackwells, the Oxford-based, academic-led chain. Seeing no copies of Why Mahler? I asked for its availability. ‘We sold one last week and have another on order,’ said a slumped young man in a sweater. ‘Should be in by the middle of next week.’ Thank you kindly.
At Waterstone’s on Piccadilly, a 20-something assistant exclaimed, ‘did you write Why Mahler? I bought it yesterday, for myself. It looked so interesting.’ Four piles of the book were nicely displayed around the music and arts section on the third floor. Classier than I expected from a national high street chain.
Hatchards (http://www.hatchards.co.uk) were having me back for the third time in as many months to sign another 50 copies. The bookshop sits on the site from which Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart’s librettist, once ran a wine store. He went bust. They won’t. Hatchards knows its customers better than any bookstore I have ever come across, and knows its authors too. A respectable pile awaited Mr Ross. When my arm seized up, I asked how many I had signed. ‘About 100,’ said the assistant, who turned out to be a creative weaver with several exhibitions to her credit. Classier still.
Apparently, Why Mahler? is flying out of the store with many copies ordered online – three in a single call from Santiago, Chile. I wonder how Alex is doing.

Why Mahler? had some signings lined up at West End book stores today, only to find that Listen to This had either preceded him, or was about to follow.

‘We have more for you to sign than Mr Ross,’ said an encouraging manager at Foyles, one of my favourite boyhood haunts. Much smarter now than I remember it, though ringed by major construction works, Foyles feels like a place you would visit for easy pleasure, as well as urgent enlightenment. 
Miriam, a marketing manager from Colorado, had thoughtfully warmed up a room to unfreeze the author’s fingers. 36 copies were beautifully piled in a semi-circle. It was too early in the day for a single malt, but it was that kind of atmosphere. Here’s the Foyles website: http://www.foyles.co.uk/book-shops-in-london
Crossing Charing Cross Road, I dropped into Blackwells, the Oxford-based, academic-led chain. Seeing no copies of Why Mahler? I asked for its availability. ‘We sold one last week and have another on order,’ said a slumped young man in a sweater. ‘Should be in by the middle of next week.’ Thank you kindly.
At Waterstone’s on Piccadilly, a 20-something assistant exclaimed, ‘did you write Why Mahler? I bought it yesterday, for myself. It looked so interesting.’ Four piles of the book were nicely displayed around the music and arts section on the third floor. Classier than I expected from a national high street chain.
Hatchards (http://www.hatchards.co.uk) were having me back for the third time in as many months to sign another 50 copies. The bookshop sits on the site from which Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart’s librettist, once ran a wine store. He went bust. They won’t. Hatchards knows its customers better than any bookstore I have ever come across, and knows its authors too. A respectable pile awaited Mr Ross. When my arm seized up, I asked how many I had signed. ‘About 100,’ said the assistant, who turned out to be a creative weaver with several exhibitions to her credit. Classier still.
Apparently, Why Mahler? is flying out of the store with many copies ordered online – three in a single call from Santiago, Chile. I wonder how Alex is doing.