Passionate Spirit

Life of Alma Mahler

By: Cate Haste

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Hardcover | 19 August 2019

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Hardcover
320 Pages

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4.7 x 16.3 x 24.4

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The life of an extraordinary artist and intellect: the composer, author and socialite Alma Mahler, whose life spanned one of the most captivating and dramatic periods in history

Born into the dying days of the Habsburg Empire, Alma Mahler was at the epicentre of fin de siècle Vienna's artistic and intellectual life. A talented composer in her own right, she was open, generous, remarkably creative, curious, challenging and zealous in her pursuit of love. Artists, architects, musicians and writers jostled to join her coterie. Gustav Mahler was her first husband; Gustav Klimt her first kiss.

The great men who were drawn into Alma's wake would be indelibly touched by her power and brilliance: from her second husband Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus and modernist architecture, to the Expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka and her last husband, writer Franz Werfel. But her life was inflected by tragedy, and the love, support and inspiration that Alma gave to the men she loved came at the heavy price of her own artistic fulfilment. As the turmoil of her century uprooted her from her homeland and she fled Austria first for occupied France and then America, it would be her love of music alone that sustained her through a series of great losses.

Drawing extensively on hitherto unpublished diaries and letters, Cate Haste illuminates the passionate spirit of one of history's most complex and charismatic muses, a modern woman with an elemental vitality that could scarcely be contained by her century – who will live forever in the art she created and inspired.

About the Author

Cate Haste is a biographer, author and documentary film maker. Previous books include Craigie Aitchison, Nazi Women, Clarissa Eden and, with Cherie Blair, The Goldfish Bowl. She has directed documentary films for all major TV networks on political and historical subjects including Cold War, End of Empire, The Churchills.

Industry Reviews

Fascinating ... Haste paints a portrait of a woman who was born to triumph, not surrender * Harper's Bazaar *
Cate Haste's seductively accessible biography offers a sympathetic interpretation of Alma's life. Written in elegant, lucid prose, her book is a treasure trove of European cultural riches and scandalous intrigue ... [Alma] emerges as a tough, lively, cultured and wilful woman ... Compelling * Economist *
Lively, well illustrated and enjoyably juicy -- Miranda Seymour * Financial Times *
A welcome and engaging narrative of a life that, surely, has not yet been fully explored -- Gillian Moore * Literary Review *
[An] absorbing biography ... Through reference to diaries, letters and interviews with Mahler's granddaughter, Haste draws a portrait of a complex, highly accomplished woman ... Mahler is depicted as a woman who not only facilitated the creative pursuits of her husbands, but was an intellectual force in her own right -- Hannah Beckerman * Observer *

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