Jens Malte Fischer, Gustav Mahler (Yale, $50). This is the first full-scale single-volume primary-source English-language biography of Mahler, and it’s a winner. Don’t be fazed by its seven-hundred-page length–the style is straightforward, the structure clear and sensible, and Fischer never gets bogged down in superfluous detail. If you’ve read Mahler Remembered, Norman Lebrecht’s important collection of contemporary reminiscences, and want to learn more about the great composer-conductor, start here (TT).
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
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