“Mahler wanted to live, that’s the whole point of his symphonies! It’s the love of life, not the love of death.”

Mr. Pappano, do you remember when you heard the music of Gustav Mahler for the first time?

Pappano: My first encounter with the music of Gustav Mahler was of course the vocal music; the Rückert-Lieder – Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen had a huge impact on me, but you know, strangely enough, the song that stays with me is Liebst du um Schönheit. I know that this song was originally not part of the group, but it’s so specifically Mahlerian. Mahler’s identity is absolutely identifiable – in three notes. And this is what made such a huge impression on me; it couldn’t be anybody else.

(more…)

We’ve just received the details about the forthcoming film Mahler on the Couch, directed by Percy Adlon and Felix Adlon.

MAHLER AUF DER COUCH

Release date Germany/Austria July 7th 2010
A new film by Percy Adlon and Felix Adlon
A genius composer, his wife, her lover … and Sigmund Freud

Barbara Romaner as Alma
Johannes Silberschneider as Gustav Mahler
Karl Markovics as Sigmund Freud
Friedrich Mücke as Walter Gropius
Eva Mattes as Anna Moll
Lena Stolze as Justine Mahler-Rosé
and
Nina Berten as Anna von Mildenburg

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Gustav Mahler snatched Alma under the noses of Vienna’s artistic elite, but ten years of marriage and the death of one child have exacerbated the strains caused by the 19 year gap in their ages, and Mahler’s refusal to allow Alma to write music (“I need a wife, not a colleague”). While staying at a spa resort, Alma falls in love with Walter Gropius, five years her junior. Tormented, Mahler seeks advice from Sigmund Freud. The encounter of the two giants of music and psychoanalysis is bumpy, temperamental, and not without humor.