Passionate Spirit: The Life of Alma Mahler

by Cate Haste

Overview

A new biography of Alma Mahler (1879-1964), revealing a woman determined to wield power in a world that denied her agency


History has long vilified Alma Mahler. Critics accused her of distracting Gustav Mahler from his work, and her passionate love affairs shocked her peers. Drawing on Alma's vivid, sensual, and overlooked diaries, biographer Cate Haste recounts the untold and far more sympathetic story of this ambitious and talented woman. Though she dreamed of being the first woman to compose a famous opera, Alma was stifled by traditional social values. Eventually, she put her own dreams aside and wielded power and influence the only way she could, by supporting the art of more famous men. She worked alongside them and gained credit as their muse, commanding their love and demanding their respect.


Passionate Spirit restores vibrant humanity to a woman time turned into a caricature, providing an important correction to a history where systemic sexism has long erased women of talent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465096718
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	09/10/2019
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	225,747
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Cate Haste (1945-2021) was a biographer, historian, and filmmaker. She is the author of a number of books, including Nazi Women and the award-winning biography Sheila Fell: A Passion for Paint.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

1 Vienna Childhood 1879-1898 1

2 Awakening 1898-1899 25

3 Love and Music 1899-1901 39

4 Divine Longing 1901-1902 59

5 A Nobler Calling 1902-1907 79

6 Grief and Renewal 1907-1910 97

7 "To Live for You, to Die for You" 1910-1911 115

8 Tempest 1911-1914 135

9 War and Marriage 1914-1917 153

10 Intertwined Souls 1917-1920 171

11 Conflict 1921-1931 195

12 Gathering Storms 1931-1936 215

13 Flight 1936-1941 237

14 Exile 1941-1946 259

15 La Grande Veuve 1946-1964 279

Appendix: The Songs and Works of Alma Mahler-Werfel 297

Acknowledgments 299

Notes 301

Bibliography 333

Figure Credits 337

Index 339

Editorial Reviews

★ 05/13/2019

In this sympathetic, engrossing biography of Viennese socialite and composer Alma Mahler (1879–1964), Haste (Sheila Fell: A Passion for Paint) traces Mahler’s struggle to find equilibrium among her men (all creative geniuses), her erotic desires, and her own musical ambition. Haste mines Mahler’s diaries and memoirs, and interviews her granddaughter to uncover her complexities and contradictions (she had many close Jewish friends, but nevertheless spouted anti-Semitic remarks). Ever excited by brilliant minds, Mahler married three men; each relationship began as an affair: composer Gustav Mahler; architect Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus movement; and the bestselling Jewish novelist and poet Franz Werfel (whom she escorted over the Pyrenees mountains by foot and across the Atlantic by ship to protect him from Nazi persecution). One lover—the eccentric artist Oskar Kokoschka, who “satisfied her yearning to be loved and worshipped”—commissioned a life-size Alma doll to dote on after their split. Mahler hosted legendary salons throughout Europe and the U.S., as Haste enthusiastically details (“What drives me around the world—like a flame in too much wind. I am forever yearning!”), but also suffered hardship (three of her four children died tragically). Haste beautifully reprises the life of this force of nature. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Like the stories of most notorious women, Alma Mahler's is one of sex and power...Was she an artist stunted by society's restrictions on women who channeled her genius to become the inspiration for the men she consorted with? Or was she a grandiose groupie, expropriating the fame of her husbands and lovers? In a new biography, Passionate Spirit, Cate Haste leans toward the former view."— New York Review of Books

"In this sympathetic, engrossing biography of Viennese socialite and composer Alma Mahler, Haste traces Mahler's struggle to find equilibrium among her men (all creative geniuses), her erotic desires, and her own musical ambition."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Haste portrays Alma Mahler in all her whirring and feverish complexity, and the result is as engrossing as it is jaw-dropping."—The Paris Review

"A well-rounded portrait of an imperious woman and her eventful life."—Kirkus Reviews

"In this meticulously researched and absorbing biography... Mahler is depicted as a woman who not only facilitated the creative pursuits of her husbands and lovers, but was an intellectual and creative force in her own right."—Hannah Beckerman, The Guardian

"Considering the sexism of the 19th and 20th centuries, Alma Mahler's status as a 'muse' can be understood as a strategic attempt to signal her own talents to the world. Haste presents a necessary update and reframing of Mahler's life and legacy."—Library Journal

"Haste... gives Alma room to romp, drawing on unpublished diary entries and memoirs (along with a trove of previous accounts) to reveal the full Alma in all her maddening, intoxicating, intimidating variety.... This delectable biography assembles the awesome elements of Alma's breathtaking life's work; it answers the questions of who, where, and when; yet the question of how this one woman succeeded in filling her canvas so magisterially remains as tantalizing and mysterious as Alma herself."—Liesl Schillinger, Airmail

"What does it mean to be a muse who is looking for her own? That is the question Alma (whose first husband is the composer Gustav Mahler) attempts to answer over the course of her life, marked by bouts of happiness and tragedy... Haste uses previously unpublished letters and diaries to restore Alma Mahler's place among the central figures of the Viennese fin de siècle."

—LitHub

"Fascinating... Haste paints a portrait of a woman who was born to triumph, not surrender."—Harper's Bazaar

"Seductively accessible...Written in elegant, lucid prose, [Passionate Spirit] is a treasure trove of European cultural riches and scandalous intrigue."—The Economist

"The Alma of Passionate Spirit is a more sympathetic creature than the monster of previous biographies... Cate Haste has wisely forsaken the harsh judgmental tone so often used about Alma, and corrected significant errors."—The Spectator

"[Alma Mahler] does burst forth here with appealing force... Haste make a strong case for us to view her subject with more compassion."—TheTimes

"Lively, well illustrated, and enjoyably juicy."—Financial Times

"For the fiercest of fierce women on your gift list, look for Passionate Spirit: The Life of Alma Mahler, by Cate Haste. It's the story of Mahler, wife of the artist, who was also the first woman to write an opera at a time when women were supposed to be shadows of their husbands."—Terri Schlichenmeyer

From the Publisher

2019-06-09
Biography of a woman of "powerful allure" who attracted men of genius.

Biographer, historian, and filmmaker Haste (Craigie Aitchinson: A Life in Colour, 2014, etc.) creates a sharp, sympathetic portrait of the sexually and emotionally voracious Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel (1879-1964), whose three husbands and many lovers brought her both prestige and notoriety. A gifted composer, she gave up a career in music to devote herself to her first husband, Gustav Mahler, who swept her off her feet while at the same time stringently delineating the terms of their marriage: "It's not so simple to marry a person like me," he told her. "I am free and must be free. I cannot be bound, or tied to one spot." He was 41 and she 22 when they married, and although both had doubts, Alma was convinced that she could not live without him. "I felt that only he could shape my life," she recalled. "I sensed his true worth and significance, which placed him streets ahead of every other man I had met." There was no lack of men—artists, musicians, and other creative types—in pursuit of the beautiful Alma, and Haste draws largely on Alma's sometimes self-serving diaries and memoirs to recount her affairs before, after, and during her several marriages. Life with Mahler proved difficult. He was demanding, and without her own music to sustain her, Alma felt bored, suffocated, and subject to "nervous torments." After Mahler's death, "a series of suitors" lavished attention on the 32-year-old widow, "a statuesque beauty with a magnetic charisma." As much as she longed to return to composing, she longed, even more, to be worshiped. She married handsome young architect Walter Gropius, had a passionate affair with "the provocative, savage, eccentric artist" Oscar Koskoschka, divorced Gropius, and eventually married poet Franz Werfel. Haste is cleareyed about Alma's emotional neediness, her "occasional intransigence," and her "deeply conservative, anti-Semitic" political views.

A well-rounded portrait of an imperious woman and her eventful life.

Kirkus Reviews