Austria Books

On our two week trip, the book was always with us. Being originally from Berlin, I still needed the updates form my time. In the Rhine and Bavaria areas we just followed Rick's advise and had a great time.

If you go anywhere without a Rick Steves book you are missing out. It has great directions, maps, and information about tourist attractions as well as restaurants and tours of the city. I would imagine a younger person would like more information about nightlife. Young or Old, the traveler will get tons of information for sites and dinning. Wouldn't go to Germany without it.

We used this book to travel to southern Germany and Austria this past summer. We visited the medieval towns along the German Romantic Road including Rothenburg. At Mad King Ludwig's castle, we were surrounded by a sea of Rick Steves' guidebooks. Rick's tips were helpful as always. My only quibble with the book was the estimated drive times between destinations were very optimistic.

This guide provides two things that I really like and miss in other guides, off the beaten path sites/activities and adjustable itineraries based on the length of your trip. This book provides itineraries of what to do, what to see, how to do it and in what order. I highly recommend this book along with a standard "travel" guide for those occasions that you stray from his "plans". The days we followed his "guided" tours exactly, were the days my family enjoyed the most. We have been to Austria/Germany several times before this last trip when we used Rick's book. This book is like having a tour planned for you for $20 instead of thousands.

In selecting this book, I indicated I wanted a book about bicycling in Germany and Austria. I did not manage to get a thorough look at the index, but saw some rivers & towns mentioned and assumed that the book would cover the area that I was interested in.... it does not!

This chef is a guy I spent time with in high school, so I bought it for personal reasons. The food is beautiful and very sophisticated, upscale, like his restaraunts. He lost his bakery in 911, but quickly set up an elaborate food stand there to feed volunteers who were working around the clock, hungry and exhausted. Thanks, David

I bought this book and a book about Austrian wine. I found the recipes to be a bit complicated, but quite wonderful. I also found some Austrian wine from an online shop (www.winemonger.com) to go with the food!

I don't thought I would like this book so much. But when I get it, I sat down and for 2 hours I was reading the book. As a German, this recipes sound often so familiar. My grandma kam from Prague, so her cooking was similar. For me, the recipes are easy to follow but you need your time. I am sure in the next time I will cook a lot from this book. The last year's I was in Italian-cooking, then California-cooking, now it is a change with this book. My husband will love it.

What can I say, many of the pictures in this book are wonderful and present the cuisine in fabulous splendor, but the recipies tend to be complex and will not come out exactly as pictured. Some of the dishes seem convoluted, particularly the dishes that require minute amounts of over a dozen ingredients.
I understand that David Bouley is held in a high regard, just reading Charlie Trotter's review is enough said, but, I think that is based largely inpart on Bouley's restaurant, not the book itself. I also beleive that much of what is in this book is not meant for the novice cook. I consider myself experienced and more than capable of preparing an out and out quality meal, but this book is not helpful in explaining technique or corresponding the text and pictures to an actual outcome.
I say beware of this book. Check it out from a library or borrow a copy from a friend and try the recipies first. I think that if you were to buy this based upon reviews or a cursory glance, you will be disappointed in how the recipies translate into stunning dishes in your own kitchen. If you struglle or fail, as I did, it is disheartening and should in no way reflect upon you as a cook. I will be honest, I was discouraged, but I had to sit and think about the audience for this book and the level of skill it is written for. I think anyone considering this book as a gift or addition to their own library needs to consider these two factors prior to making a purchase. And, if in doubt, spend some time looking it over carefully in a bookstore coffeeshop before you buy.
Make no mistake this book is wonderfully photographed and well constructed, but contnet wise, I cannot say that it is among my favorites nor do I find it a very useful or insightful text.

David Bouley is one of America's great chefs. He could be our greatest culinary creator. Bouley's first cookbook is only a peephole into his talent and creation.
In trying several of the recipes offered by his book, I was initially optimistic. The concepts are interesting, the preparations are layered with different nuances of flavor, and the pictures are lovely. The first hesitation I had, was when i noticed that the recipe for Mushroom Goulasch corresponded only abstractly with the photo of the dish. In the recipe, the dumplings are not dumplings, but more of a spaetzle. the spaetzle is not yellow with pieces of chive, but totally green. Finally the beautiful buttery foam in the photo is in actuality a heavy green sauce. So much for truth in advertising.
the potato salad we made was first class.
the tuna dish we made was fine in most respects yet sorely lacking in detail as to the slicing of the tuna (which is critical in the cooking process).
the dishes were very involved, yet the final result was mediocre at best. What a waste of time!
I have eaten in Bouley's restaurant (Bouley's} and followed his career from a distance for some time. He has undoubtedly squandered a great talent in some ways. Yet, I would love for him to publish i true compendium of his creations. Bouley is so talented. I feel very disappointed as i can only assume that the bulk of his oeuvre will be forever out of my reach and understanding.

The most boring, rambling book I've ever read. Was Wray being paid by the word? If you have problems falling to sleep, this is the remedy. I have issues with buying a book and not completing it, both as a courtesy to the author and as a return on my investment. This book is the exception. I managed to make it through 150+ pages of a 300+ page novel and dozed off so many times that my chin bruised my chest. This is easily the best sleep aid on my bookshelf.

John Wray, in his debut novel, "The Right Hand of Sleep," has chosen several ambitious topics to explore: the rise of facism in a sleepy Austrian town, its impact on the town's population and the response of a "Lost Generation" soldier to the post World War I period. Lofty goals, however, do not make a novel successful. "Sleep" is eerily emotionless; its protagonist fails to elicit either sympathy or identification, and the author's style is alternately dense or elipitical. Though the novel deserves praise for its attempted illumination of the causation of facism's appeal in rural Austria, its narrative is sapped by excessive and unnecessary descriptive passages and vitiated by shallow characterizations.

"Sleep" focuses on the moral degradation and consequent alienation of its protagonist, Oskar Voxlauer. Debased and scarred by his front-line experiences during World War I, Oskar emerges as a quintessential representative of blighted youth. Shorn of frivolous idealism, Oskar nevertheless tries to reconcile his repressed hope for a coherent life with his silent resignation to the cruelty of the world and the absolute irrelevance of politics. Indeed, Oskar's passivity and unwillingess to accept personal risk for ideas (even for defending one of his few friends, a Jewish tavern-keeper, from the facist onslaught) is part naturalist impotence, part stoic refusal to acknowledge pain and part selfish desire to lead an invisible life. Regardless of Oskar's motivation to avoid direct confrontation with life, he disdains any political movement as unworthy of commitment. After all, his own life's experiences, as a soldier for a purportedly noble cause, as a companion to a Ukranian woman under the iron grip of Bolshevik excesses or as a irrelevant gamekeeper to his Jewish friend's landholdings, have proven the worthlessness, even the danger, of adherence to ideas.

Unfortunately, the banality of evil as the cause of facism is not groundbreaking philosophy. Wray's single greatest failure is to shed any new light on this perception. The people who surround Oskar never receive adequate depth. Even his Nazi adversary, Kurt, fails to arouse much disgust. Ironically, Mr. Wray, in writing about disaffection, disillusion and lack of connection, composes his work in much the same vein. If that weren't disappointment enought, his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, permits him to use an absolutely arcane method of dialogue, one which requires the reader to not only wonder who is speaking, but when and if the spoken word has begun or concluded. The simple and proper usage of quotation marks would have made "Sleep" more comprehensible. Equally confusing is Wray's inexplicable replacement of Oskar's valuable first-person flashbacks mid-way through the novel with those of the Nazi Kurt. What is a successful and thoughtful inclusion becomes an irrelevancy.

"The Right Hand of Sleep" proves that works about Nazism, Jew hatred, and the rise of facism are not easy compositions. Despite the rich possibilities of dealing with the horrific loss of dignity and conscience of raw recruits in World War I, the novel never maintains dramatic tension or serious character development. Consequently, this well-intentioned work falls far short of its hopes.

John Wray's novel is one of a number of new works that focus on the Holocaust from a different angle than the classic survivor memoirs or fictions that relate the experiences of the persecuted (see "Hester Among the Ruins" and "The Dark Room," for example). "The Right Hand of Sleep" is set in pre-World War II Austria and relates the story of a love triangle formed by a World War I deserter, a young Austrian woman, and her former lover, now an SS Commander.

The title comes from a poem and hints at the troubles caused when one tries to return home. The novel's protagonist, Oskar Voxlauer, returns to his small hometown in Austria in 1938, more than 20 years after he deserted the German Army. Having made his "separate peace" in one war that he could not accept, he finds himself enmeshed a new war-about-to-be that he also cannot accept. The novel's antagonist, the young SS Commander, also discovers trouble awaits upon his return home from a stay in Germany.

Despite this promising situation, the novel disappoints in almost every way. It has little narrative momentum to propel a reader, and, unfortunately, its characters remain fairly opaque at the same time. It becomes difficult to care about either the story or the characters in this novel. The flashbacks that flesh out the antagonists' political history are the book's only redeeming quality, as they provide a glimpse into Europe's major political upheavals in the early twentieth century as experienced by two fairly ordinary Austrians.

It's difficult to see who the readers for Wary's novel might be. It's clearly not eventful enough to appeal to war fiction devotees, but it's also not successful enough to satisfy the reader of literary fiction.

All of the 5 star reviews and the NY Times review express my excitement about this book. They all ignore the core of this moving work, however. This is a story about who becomes a fascist and who fights fascism. True, it is also a love story, a story about the 20th century in Europe, a story about life between the wars in an Austrian village; but it is first a consideration of self-serving or altruism, seizing one's own best chance or insisting on one's beliefs even if they are not popular. Powerful and completely convincing, this is a fable for us now.

Oskar Voxlauer is born in 1902 in the Austrian province of Carinthia. At age 16, he is drafted and sent to the Isonzo battlefront in the Dolomites. He deserts and wanders east, coming to a stop in the Ukraine. There, he spends the next twenty years on a communist colchose before returning to his small village in Carinthia. Together with Else, he moves to a lonely cottage where he works as a game keeper. It is now 1938.

Germany is under Nazi rule, and the clouds drift towards Austria. The first messenger is Kurt, Else's cousin, who just returned from a two-year stay in Berlin. We now get the first run-ins between the former Bolshevik and the Nazi. More and more events come to a head. Austria becomes part of Germany, and Kurt shows up in the uniform of a SS officer. Else, guarding her own secrets, is placed in the middle between the two combattans.

Wray wrote a magnificent book, not painting Oskar all good, nor Kurt all bad. It is a most plausible story that shows in clear and absolutely accurate detail what actually happened in those days. It is a textbook of history enveloped in a gripping story. That Wray makes mistakes in the naming of the SS ranks can easily be forgiven.

This is a book for the younger generation to learn from, and for the older generation to rediscover. But I do wonder if there was a purpose to placing the action in Carinthia, probably the only western region nowadays under the government of a dedicated Nazi (Joerg Haider).

Best compendium of Freud's work by far. And with intelligent commentary by Gay. Yes, some of Siggy's turgid prose is hard going but, it is worth the investment in time and effort. Read it with an open mind and you will see how timeless Freud's message is...and Gay does not sink into sycophancy, as many others did.

This book describes Freud`s life with deep insight, and you can review the European history at around late 19th century to the beginning of 20th century through Freud's life. Very well done.

May 6 was the 150th birth anniversary of Sigmung Freud; he died in London in 1939. His theories have been changed along the way by other psychologists, but they remain the basis for therapy. He believed that past conflicts cause current emotional problems, the trauma of being born was actually at the root of neurotic anxiety, and that childhood experiences are the crucible of character. He delved into the science of recollection and reflection. Some of his beliefs have been tossed aside as so much feminist bunk, but had he still been alive, he would have agreed that history will never end because it is made by human beings.

Someone acting rashly (out of character) is said to be "frontal" referring to the part of the brain involved in impulse control. They react to slurs in a violent manner to protect their self-integrity. One must confront the parts of himself which are painful and shameful and difficult to face. A philosopher at the University of Chicago identifies a "core idea" on which Freud's reputation must rest, that human life is "essentially conflicted." Today, we have brain-imaging technology which can prove or disprove his mind-boggling ideas.

A person of character always is truthful. Dishonesty by omission (withhold the truth) or commission (telling an untruth) is a byproduct of the change system. Don't tell people what they want to know; that is misleading. When you fail to tell the truth, minor issues escalate into major ones. You usually become angry at perceived psychological threats. Someone threatens your self-esteem, your reputation, your peace of mind, or your sense of well-being, and you explode in anger. There are biological reasons for the way we act or react to this threat to our self-preservation. Empathy helps us to contain and expand our own sense of self-esteem. You have to confront the parts of yourself (your mind) that are painful, shameful, and difficult to face.

Eric Kandel wrote a book about the memory for which he won the Nobel Prize. The future of neuroscience leads us to the biology of the mind. This science is called phrenology -- a science of the mind. Why we act and think the way we do. How we interpret danger from slander. Too much sadness become depression, too much gladness becomes mania, too much fear becomes panic, and too much anger becomes rage. Can virtue be taught? In today's society we constantly search for the pursuit of happiness. One thing to question is "What makes a problem moral."

It's too bad Freud isn't around to see how immoral our society has become with deceit and even by the way they dress in public. Many more humans have psychological problems these days than in the '30s, which are going unresolved. His ideas probably would be considered obsolete, but they have been expanded to include behaviorism, humanistic, mythological, cognitive behavioral therapy, even self psychology. With his sometimes wrong ideas, we can pick and choose which field is best for us to overcome our hurts (caused by others, not being born or ignored as children) and understand that we are not alone.

If you have minimal knowledge about the father of psychoanlaysis, or if you hold strong opinions about the "Prof" as his students and colleagues referred to him deferentially and affectionally, this work by Peter Gay will highlight the peaks of Freud's dazzling insights, and provide plenty of background for his all too human failings. Freud is presented as a man struggling with issues of family, career, and the inevitablity of death. Gay is able to condense and summarize key Freudian concepts and place them in the context of the life and cultural time of the father of psychoanalysis. For students of psychology as well as observers of our current cultural and political delusions, Gay neatly captures the details as well as the broad scope of Freud's shadow on the 20th Century and beyond.

Disagree with two of the reviewers below: Gay is not unbearly biased in favor of Freud, book is not too much for casual dabblers in the subject.

First, one could hardly expect a six hundred page biography of Freud to be authored by someone who hates the man. Important to be realistic about who writes books in the first place.

Second, Freud was a prolific writer, and the book doesn't shy away from in depth analysis, so really it's like two three hundred page books. Now, if that's too much Freud for you, you're probably not that interested in the first place.

I like to read biographies of thinkers who left behind copious amount of published work. That way, it's easier to get a sense of what you want to read (if anything) by the author.

Because much of Freud's work revolves around family life, his family life is more then usually interesting. It's impossible to appreciate the originality of Freud's thought without having a firm context for HIS everyday life.

This book provides a balanced reading of Freud's controverial life. I found the bad to be included as much as the good. Freud's influence on the 20th century has been so profound that even if you completely disagree with the man (over, say, his attitude towards women), it is still rewarding to learn about his thought.

Packing Rick Steves into the backpack is typically a good idea before flying to Europe. His off-the-beaten-path approach is an excellent way to feel more like a temporary local than a tourbus tourist. Thanks to Rick, my mother and I slept beneath feather down comforters in a 500-year-old guesthouse in Rothenberg, chatted with a local winemaker in the Rhine Valley about the eis wine his family has been making for 400 years and much more. However, readers looking for the perfect backdoor experience must remember that any town recommended by Rick Steves is destined to become flooded by scores of Rick Steves readers. To avoid this, we took another of Rick's suggestions by traveling deep into the off season. Overall, this is a gem of a book filled with solid advice written in a laid back style even if the maps leave a bit to be desired. To have the most of the book, however, I would again follow Rick's advice by taking the best of his suggestions, but leaving the door open to discover new back doors as well.

Somehow I get the feeling that Rick Steve's core audience is a practical, middle aged, fairly well-to do kind of a person who is looking for a no-hassle guide for a short vacation. If you're that person, then this is the book for you! But, if you will be spending an extended amount of time abroad, planning your own route or destination, or looking to travel as cheaply as you can- this is NOT the book for you. There is not much suggested in way of variety as far as hotels and eating goes (and most of it is not inexpensive) and most of the destinations are "popular" vacation fare. Travellers with more imagination and a sense of spontenaiety will find a Lonely Planet guide much more helpful.

We used Rick's advice to enjoy Germany and Austria. We followed his advice on the best places to see within our time and were never dissappointed. My sister who lives in Germany even loved his book and learned of some new places to visit! One stop we made that was missing in his book and should be included was the overnight at the Fernsteineese Schloss in the Alps in Austria. This is a castle built in 1100 and you get to stay overnight in it and enjoy a wonderful 5 course meal....with a beautiful view.

Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
Rick Steves

I like Rick Steves' travel philosophy, which is basically not to stay in hotels, pack a lunch, and travel frugally. There is some good information in this book. It helped us several times on a trip to Germany and Austria.

The coverage about the Mittelrhein is informative. I liked Steves' map of the castles between Koblenz and Bingen. Largely due to his coverage of the town of Bacharach, we spent two nights there. We were not alone. I actually saw a tourist walking down the street with a copy of this book in his hand. One place offering lodging had a sign out front about being mentioned in this book. Despite these things, Bacharach is a charming town, where one can walk everywhere or take a boat to the next town. The town is surrounded by vineyards, and the local wine that can be tried in several establishments in town is exceptionally good.

In Rothenburg, Steve's book came in handy late one afternoon, upon arriving after the tourist office had closed. Being in a walled city as evening approaches with no prospect of a place to stay can be a little traumatic. We studied the book, bought a city map, and navigated the twisting medieval streets to a place mentioned. We got a room. The host was a pleasant elderly gentleman, who offered a good room at a reasonable price.

Moving on to Salzburg, Austria, Steves' book failed us somewhat. We got caught in a lot of traffic, could not find the accommodation area he described, although stopping to ask several times, eventually gave up in frustration, and went to Berchtesgaden, Germany, not too far away. The book had very little information on Berchtesgaden although there were many charming places to stay there and in other smaller towns along the way. The country inn where we stayed was very pleasant. There were some great views of the mountains from the grounds. The Berchtesgaden area is truly beautiful, but one would not have known this from Steves' book.

I do give Rick Steves credit for directing us to the town of Reutte in Tyrol. The cozy farmhouse where we stayed in Ehenbickl, an adjacent town, had been in the owners' family for 700 years. The hospitality was second to none. Reutte is situated on the Lech River about a twenty-minute drive from Neuschwanstein, perhaps the most touristy place in Germany.

On the whole, this book by Rick Steves was quite helpful to us. However, his coverage is somewhat hit or miss. He does cover many interesting places to visit. However, he leaves just as many out and skips over others. Berchtesgaden would be a case in point. He also dismisses the city of Heidelberg, one of the most beautiful cities in Germany in a few sentences as being too tourist-oriented. This is ironic because Rothenburg, though worth a trip, is about as oriented to tourism as a town can be.

Despite some shortcomings, Rick Steves' book is still a good travel book.My advice, however, would be not to bind yourself to it, like the tourist I saw in Bacharach. Use the Internet to locate places to stay in the German speaking world and send e-mail to make reservations. In local inns and farmhouses, you will not have to give a credit card number. They will actually trust you. Austria has exceptional web pages. There one can find some of the most serene, beautiful farmhouse accommodations, at inexpensive prices, in Europe. Gute Reise! (Have a nice trip.)

PROs: Rick Steves packs this travel guide with useful and accurate information, honest opinions, travel inspiration, and enjoyable writing. It is easy and entertaining to read - chock full of Steves' (sometimes corny) humor. I can pick it up and read it again and again, and each time I feel the adventurer within is ready for another. For anyone planning a European vacation, Steves' guides are a necessity. With his guidance on travel tips as well as the "nitty gritty", your dreams of a fantastic vacation can easily be a reality.

CONs: Because of its honest & opinionated nature, this book is not as comprehensive as others. It is a wonderful vacation guide; however if you are going to be spending a great deal of time in Europe (i.e. on an exchange program) it is wise to purchase an accompanying book to guide you through the destinations that Steves does not cover in this guide. (I have found the Lonely Planet series to be excellent.) And don't skimp... as Steves himself says, "guidebooks are $15.oo tools for $3,000.oo experiences."

I highly recommend this book as a compass for all European vacations. Bon Voyage!

In this review I refer to this edition,from Filiquarian Publishing,only. Without question this document has extreme historical and philosophical importance. Everyone who has an interest in the history of Zionism, Israel, Jewish migration and development, or even just a general interest in sociology or economics should have a copy in their library. But not this edition! It is so rife with typographical errors, misspellings, dropped words and such that it is often unreadable. An hour or two's work by a copy editor would have made a world of difference.

This book is the basis of how the state Israel should be created according to the end of the 19th century "Wiener" Theodor Herzl.
In fact many of his considerings were used to create the zionist state Israel, except his idealistic and visionary view where Palestinians (Filistines originally from the Greek island Philistos) were given "a piece of the cake": jews and Palestinians were considered in his opinion to live peacefully and happy together in this "altneuland" or"aviv".

Not the best book to read on the subject, lacked a lot of information and found it to be not very interesting. Have read better ones on this subject.

First published in 1896, this book gave rise to modern Zionism. Given the impact of the Middle East situation on the planet, this book should be read by everyone to better understand the world we live in today.

For me, two things stand out from the book. Firstly, the "internalisation" of anti-semitism (see "Causes of Anti-Semitism" on page 23) whereby Herzl himself accepts (in my view quite wrongly) that European anti-semitism is inevitable due to certain characteristics of the Jews. Secondly, although leaving the question open of whether to emigrate to Argentina or Palestine to create the Jewish state, in either case Herzl just ignores the fact that both countries were inhabited, with people who might not want incomers creating a new state for themselves in their midst.

Herzl's book is a must-read for anyone who wants to get a sense of the Zionist movement and the passion of its most famous leader. It's a short book, easy to read, but provocative-- situating the reader in a period when Jews had both become emancipated from the ghetto and begun to attain some social and economic power. No surprise that anti-Semitism was an almost immediate result. I recommend it for Jews and non-Jews alike.

Printed in 2005, some of the factual material is out-of-date (e.g., banks that change currency or traveller's checks), but the arrrangement by geographical areas works and the city maps--and the variety of things given on them--are clear and useful, as usual.

A great book in preparation for your trip to Austria. Several smaller, yet interesting, areas are discussed.

As usual Lonely Planet shows the best. I especially liked the KunstHausWien in Vienna!!

I have used Lonely Planet Guides in the past and have been pleased with the information they provided. This iteration, however, leaves much to be desired. I use the guides to point out the "obvious" places that should not be missed, and "secret" places that are off the beaten path that the writers share with their readers. I found this book lacking in both instances. Vacations are never long enough, and as such, they require research and a seasoned guide to separate the worthwhile sights from the rest. After reading this guide, I was not much better off than before I started. Further, I found the guide is written for a backpacker mentality; fine for them, but not for me. Way too much time and space was devoted to finding one's way via public transport, and where to find the next hostel. I am well beyond that. I recently received the latest Fodor's and Frommer guides for Austria, and in one chapter, I was miles ahead with either guide over where LP left me. LP was extremely helpful for my travels to Australia and Belgium. This edition was rather disappointing.

I just returned from a brief trip to Austria. Lonely Planet is a reliable guide, but it has many problems some of which have been discussed already. I agree that it is a bit too oriented towards backpackers, wanderers, and poor students. This is not bad, because some guides such as the Guide Vert don't even acknowledge hostels it seems.

The LP notably missed the number of organized tours that were available, in English, from Salzburg. I was able to go to Berchtesgaden/Eagles Nest on a guided tour. There are also the Ice Caves. These tours significantly reduced my level of effort and organization required.

The other problem is that with few pictures (not a terrible thing given limited space) it is hard to have a good sense of where you want to go and what you should prioritize. For example, how does an Alpine castle in Austria compare to one in Germany or France? "Best in Europe" is a useful description you don't find; "Best in Austria" is not especially useful given that Austria is not the largest country in Europe, and one is more likely than not to be passing through Austria between Italy, Germany, and France rather than spending weeks there.

In the case of Vienna, I found that there were some significant museums and sites that were missing; such as the arsenal or the German flak towers. However, they did have most of the important sites and if you only have a day or two that's fine.

The LP books consistently have more descriptions and destinations for any mainstream books. If you want that "hidden treasure" you need to get a regional/local book, usually in the local language.

The title of this book is misleading. This is because Mr. Brooke-Shepherd devotes most of his attention to 20th century events in Austria. As a result, he neglects some very important (not to mention interesting) material from before that time. For example, he spends little time discussing the Habsburgs' long tenure as Holy Roman Emperors. Moreover, he neglects the rise of such influential Austrians as Maria Theresa, Joseph II, and Metternich. The book is good in what it covers, but, as earlier stated, is equally memorable for what it doesn't cover.

Gordon Brook-Shepheard's books are always informative and interesting. This book has provided me with information I did not know.

I found this to be an interesting book for its coverage of historical events within Austria during the 20th century (i.e., the fall of the Hapsburg monarchy and the Nazi occupation). Brook-Shepherd goes into pretty good detail on these events. However, he devotes much of the book to the 20th Century, and, in a seeming contradiction to the title, does not give as much attention to pre-20th Century developments. For example, he does not give much detail about Maria Therea or Joesph II. Perhaps he should have devoted the book to only the 20th Century.

A seminal work of great magnitude but weak in its analysis of pre-20th century history. This book gives a whirlwind tour of Austrian History from 1200-1900. Then the book slows down and achieves greatness in describing the intricacies of Franz Joseph's rule as well as WWI and the road to Anschloss with Germany. The book picks up by describing the little know portion of Austrian history, the post 1945 Austria. At first divided between the major power Austria then became a `permanently' neutral power, although a power that hosted a controversial leader in the form of Mr. Waldheim, a former Nazi. The book then covers the `awakening' of Austria as it found itself post cold war. Although not up to date, it doesn't cover the election of the right wind Jorg Haider, this is an excellent introduction and survey of Austrian history.

Seth J. Frantzman

English-language books on the long-term history of Austria are relatively rare. Admittedly, Austria was one of the most historically interesting places in the world during the latter part of Franz Josef's reign-dozens of interesting books are available covering events and movements encompassing the intellectual flowering of Wien beginning in the late Victorian period. Giant personalities in the fields of visual art, psychology, music, philosophy, literature and theatre could seemingly be found in every coffee house in turn-of-the century Wien.

But judging from the available books, outside of the ever-busy Hapsburg family, little of interest to the rest of the world seems to have taken place before the last quarter of the 19th century. This is reflected in "The Austrians", which in spite of being a 483 page book, reaches the year 1866 by page 88. I think it would be fair to think of the book as more like a 140-year odyssey with a very long introduction.

Outside of the short shrift given to early Austrian history, I found this an enjoyable and informative book. Austria is unique among modern European nations in having been for centuries the spiritual center of one of Europe's largest empires, yet it is now a relatively small country of relatively little influence on the world stage-the teutonic rump left over from the mostly-voluntary dissolution of a multi-ethnic dual-monarchy. Given this relatively short period in which to develop a sense of unique national identity, Brook-Shepherd attempts to show in his book how seminal events in Austrian history are either influential on today's sense of nationhood (however strong that may be), or are least illustrative of typical characteristics of Austrian culture or character. This is a difficult task, and I think the author is only partially successful.

Still, it is a noble attempt, and although it sometimes feels as if the author is straining to make an obscure point about Austrian nationhood, in general, this doesn't really interfere with the book. The author has spent significant time in post-war Austria and has a number of interesting contacts both within what is left of the Hapsburg family and within the Austrian political sphere. He certainly cannot be blamed for taking use of these journalistic and personal contacts in substantiating his history, and unlike some reviewers, I did not feel that this was excessive-it did not distract from the flow of the book for me at all. I cannot say this about the excessive use of footnotes, which I found extremely distracting.

Overall, I found this an enjoyable and informative book. In spite of some flaws, it is the best single-volume English-language source I've found on what is unfortunately, something of an obscure subject. I find it to be complementary to Andrew Wheatcroft's "The Hapsburgs." It takes a very different approach and they two books have relatively minimal overlap.

Lockwood's Beethoven:...is not only one of the best organized (as in excellently researched and uniquely ordered),but is also smartly presented from a sensitive muscial point of view. This point would seem to be obvious in biographies of composers, but is not always the case. From the standpoint
of a present day composer, this is fine new portal into the mind and music
of this giant of giants.

As a college undergrad I took a music course taught by Lockwood many years ago. He was good as a teacher, and I knew he was a LvB scholar, so I always hoped to see a book about LvB's music. After I left college he published not one but at least two such books.

This one was written for the general audience, someone who wants to learn about LvB's life as well as his music. Unfortunately, the interweaving leaves the book in the awkward position of fulfilling neither purpose. As a biography it's too brief, and if you were looking for in-depth analysis of LvB's great music you'd be disappointed like myself. I guess one purpose it can serve is as a casual introduction to the background of LvB as a person and as a musician, against the cultural-political backdrop of his times. However, I myself find the coverage too shallow, way too shallow.

Ludwig Van Beethoven is no easy man to write about, and his music at times defies description and shrugs off analysis. However, Lockwood has risen to the occasion. With painstaking thoroughness and an eye and ear for detail, he serves as our guide through a life that was filled with obstacles at every turn, and yet out of that, Beethoven was able to create works of enduring genius. Here was a man who shook his fist at the heavens and defied convention. He scorned the ordinary and had no time or patience for niceties. Lockwood misses nothing in this probing, sensitive and very honest account of a difficult man who wrote extraordinary music. At times, we learn more than we might need to, but for the serious reader, this book is both a challenge and a joy. I commend it highly!

Can't go wrong with this finely researched and well written tome on the Master.

Lewis Lockwood's Beethoven: the Music and the Life is a tremendous portrayal of this great composer. Lewis Lockwood is a highly recognized expert on Beethoven and is a Professor of Music at Harvard University. The book was a finalist of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. In the book, he goes into great detail about almost every one of Beethoven's pieces. He does so in a fashion that encompasses the theoretical aspects of the music, what was occurring in Beethoven's personal life and the political and historical situations at the time of his compositions. The book also includes several illustrations that consist of portions of compositional sketches, handwritten letters, and portraits of influential people in Beethoven's life. With the use of letters, conversations books and sketchings, some of which are over two hundred years old, Lockwood provides an intimate glimpse of Beethoven.
The book is divided into four different parts that cover different eras of Beethoven's life. The first discusses Beethoven's childhood up until he moved to Vienna and the other three are about Beethoven's stages (or as Lockwood refers to them, maturities) as a composer. Each part starts with biographical information, but then moves on to the musical descriptions of his Beethoven's pieces, of which Lockwood discusses all known works. I found it surprising that his life could be divided so concisely, but in actuality, this form is tremendously helpful and gives the reader a greater understanding of the evolutionary development of Beethoven. Some have criticized the book for its traditional format and its lack of innovation, but I find the layout of the book fitting and unobtrusive.
Seeing Beethoven as both a man and a musician/composer, there is consequently a juxtaposition of these two views and throughout the book, Lockwood flips back and forth in order to keep a sense of chronology. Even within these views, there are several sides to Beethoven that Lockwood expresses. In the book, there are times when Beethoven, as a person, comes off as a lonely bachelor that deeply loved the women in his life but regretfully never was able to maintain a long-lasting relationship. But Lockwood also writes about how Beethoven's cold, strict parenting in effect caused his nephew, Karl, or as Beethoven referred to him as his "adopted son", to attempt suicide. After which, Karl sought comfort from his mother, whom Beethoven had driven him away from. As a composer, he is shown as both the artist that deserves infinite praise. Yet Lockwood also portrays him as the creator of musical drivel in order to make a profit in exchange for a sense of his own integrity for example when he composed "Wellington's Victory" (Lockwood 339). These various sides of Beethoven as a man and as an artist seem completely natural for a character as complex as Beethoven's and for music that is so powerful and philosophically deep. At certain points, these two views do get mixed and integrated into each other, which is what I believe that a biography of an artist should be based upon.
A reoccurring theme that arises throughout the book (and Beethoven's life for that matter) is the Romantic notion of overcoming adversity. Lockwood accurately sums up the effect on Beethoven from his deafness when he writes, "As a man he found himself imprisoned by deafness. As an artist, he broke free, continuing on a trajectory marked by significant acts of renewal and stages of stylistic transformation" (122-3). Lockwood wisely avoids playing up the Romantic ideals that embodied Beethoven. Instead he tries to present Beethoven as truthfully and real to life as possible with the sources available. Even though many Romantic artists are glorified by the status as an artist, Lockwood gives praise when it is deserved. The intention of the book is not to worship Beethoven, but it is rather to paint an accurate portrait of Beethoven in the various periods of his life.
Another theme that arises throughout the book is the influence of his predecessors, which Lockwood conveys well. It is interesting to see that Beethoven had the same anxiety of influence due to Mozart as just about every future Romantic composer had about Beethoven. In these instances, he comes off as more human than the composing giant he often seems. Personally, I find it much more interesting to identify with a person than to see him from purely an academic standpoint especially in the case of non-fiction reading which can be dry and unappealing if done solely for academic purposes. We, the reader, are also given this window into Beethoven as a person with his depression from the loss of hearing, the struggle of gaining custody of Karl, and his poor attempts at maintaining a normal father-son relationship with him.
There is a general bias that pieces from the last maturity are better than everything he wrote before. I think that it is difficult to compare the two because there is such a difference in quantity. Certainly the Ninth Symphony and other late pieces are incredible works of innovations that integrate influence of early composers like Bach and Handel. But I felt that some of the earlier works deserved more focus than they were given. For instance, in Chapter 20 there are thirty pages devoted entirely to the topic of the Ninth Symphony, which covers a political background of the piece, the varying interpretations of the piece in the present day, a look into the composing process and the "character" of the piece. Meanwhile, the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies are grouped together in one section. Each is given a subsection, which are each about seven pages. These tremendous works of Beethoven's are discussed for about a fourth of the time that the Ninth is. I understand that the Ninth is an incredibly influential symphony that still has effect today, but I don't think that has the power to overshadow his earlier important works.
Overall, the book seems to be intended for both the casual reader and the specialist on the topic. Lockwood conveys the intricacies of Beethoven's personal life like his relationship with Haydn, the women of his life, and his family life. Despite how long ago Beethoven's life took place, the preservation of various documents that were actually written by Beethoven allow the reader to almost enter into a conversation with the man. A fairly vague psychological survey seems to emerge from this biographical portion of the text. However, the focus of the book is on the music and the brilliance of his compositional skills. In a sense, he implies this with the title in the ordering of the words "music" and "life". At some points, the music theory that the reading entails seems difficult for the less scholarly reader, but Lockwood restrains from using overly technical terms and keeps it at a rudimentary level that if the reader were to listen to the pieces as they read about it, they would be able to establish an understanding of the text. But this goes for just about any writing on music because it much easier to have a clear grasp of a piece of music if the reader listens to it before or after reading about it than if they only read about it.

The Author describes, at appreciable length, why Gustav Mahler was widely misunderstood both as man and musician. More than 50 years after his death his works were left apart until, restored to life prompted by interest and performance, Mahler took his deserved place in the repertoires.

Mahler's tempestuous marriage to Alma Schindler is of particular interest. Alma claimed she was for decades the main authority of Mahler's works, values, character and his day-to-day actions and movements.

For many years, Alma's various publications quickly became the central source of information and references for Mahler scholars and music-lovers alike.
But, unfortunately, many writers have treated her accounts as unreliable, false, misleading and often impaired soundness. It is a fact that these imperfect accounts have nevertheless had a great influence upon several generations of music-lovers, hence the legend: "Alma's Problem"".
Mahler's youth, as described in the first two chapters is fascinating, like the reader's watching a live short resume cast by History Channel. There begins Mahler's occupation as summer composer "" in isolated huts in the country, and his revolutionary achievements as director of Vienna Opera. In 1907 Mahler resigned his post, many claimed he was driven from it, and went with Alma to America. Four years later his health in ruin and his marriage crumbling, he returned to Vienna and died there on the 18th of May 1911, a few weeks before his 51st birthday. He was buried four days later in Grinzing cemetery next to his daughter Maria (died in 1907)""
""On the day he died, that teeming rain on that blustery Monday afternoon, hundreds of ordinary Viennese crowded outside the little church where the service was held and the coffin blessed. Only minority had come to pay tribute to Mahler the composer. His gigantic Symphonies had rarely gone down well in Vienna and not a single one had been premiered there. But Mahler -the Opera Director- that was another matter. In a few stormy years he had lashed the institution at the heart of the city's cultural life to a peak of excellence it might never reach again. Many Viennese had acknowledged as much while Mahler was still at the helm. Now some erstwhile critics were starting to do so too. As one contemptuous Mahler fan put it, `'the same sneering somebody's'' who had attacked every Mahler production were now `'keen to belong to the exclusive circle of Mahlerites'""

The talented, ambitious and ruthless conductor is often degenerated in Alma's memoirs as a sickly and cerebral recluse; Arnold Schoenberg called him a `saint'. For some of Mahler's friends and disciples, he was a great creative artist. Mahler was even suicidal, often called `the Jewish Monkey'' because he was committed to his interpretations of Wagner, Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak, Berlioz, Brahms, Bruckner, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, even Georges Bizet and many more. His violent conducting gesticulations had been subject to laughter from his peers, pupils, viewers and musicians. The man was simply very absorbed (committed) in his work; for instance he believed he made-up for Beethoven's deafness by offering interpretations that he felt was necessary in the Ninth Symphony which Beethoven must have had in mind. Yet one described Mahler's dynamite conducting `'Like a cat with convulsions"' He had many clashes with fellow conductors, theater directors, and even composers; something else, early on Mahler had a row with Brahms .While at the university, he worked as a music teacher and made his first major attempt at composition with the cantata Das klagende Lied. The work was entered in a competition where the jury was headed by Johannes Brahms, but failed to win a prize. (Did he feel the brunt of Jewish curse?? It could be!!)
(In later years, however, Brahms was greatly impressed by Mahler's conducting of Don Giovanni.). Similarly Mahler had noisy discussions with Richard Strauss on Strauss's tone poem `'Sinfonia Domestica'', Mahler simply couldn't hold his row.
Now, the author pinpointed inscriptions that go: To the `'holy Gustav Mahler'' and the `'immortal example of his works and deeds'' dedicated on one of the hundreds of wreaths lay beside the route between church and graveside. ""It came from Arnold Schonberg, often helped Mahler with cash and counsel, and other pioneers of the atonal school, including Alban Berg, and Anton Webern. Arnold Schonberg was one of those who, huddled under the umbrellas, trudged slowly behind the coffin as it was borne away from the church. So was the conductor Bruno Walter, destined to fight for wider recognition of Mahler's music on two continents over the half a century. So was Anna Bahr-Mildenburg, Mahler's greatest love before his marriage and transformed by him from a promising young singer into a dramatic soprano without peer. ""
Many more attended, there too was Mahler's revolutionary stage designer Alfred Roller, the poet and dramatist Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the painter Gustav Klimt, one of Alma's old flames. Alma herself did not attend - on doctors' orders, it was said. How cruel of Mahler's wife not to attend her husband's funeral! Had she really loved him? Had she really respected him despite all his flaws? Alma wrote two books (memoirs) - My Life, My Loves, and My Diaries 1898-1902) - and their impact on Mahler's studies was great for at least some 40 years.
Alma was a graceful, well-connected and influential woman who outlived Mahler by more than 50 years. (This reminds me of Cosima and Wagner. Cosima outlived Wagner by 47 years). How trustworthy is any story laid by women who outlive their notorious husbands for so long? Shouldn't they be given credence, though there may not have been full and final grain of truth in it?) - The greatest difficulty in writing one's memoirs is to keep a certain detachment at a time when passions were running high. True in her old age Alma wouldn't admit that her apprehensions with the past `'husband and wife"" days had been influenced with the benefit of hindsight when she now perceived the significance of events after they have occurred. Within 50 years Alma's reminiscences of past events couldn't pass without nostalgia or without an urging wistful desire to return, at least in written thoughts (modified and garbled), to a former time in one's life when young.

Enigmatic, though, was Mahler's meeting with Freud:
Gustav and Sigmund were Jews by birth. They had much more in common. Their thoughts had no relation to religion and did not oppose it. They were very strict, thoughtful and rigorous in observance of moral matters, often excessively so; rigidly austere Viennese gentlemen - by adoption.
When Freud had been a medical trainee in Vienna, Mahler was a student at the Conservatory. When met for the first and last time in the summer of 1910, Freud was 54 and Mahler at 50. With his heart troubles Mahler had less than a year to live. The time of the encounter was in the middle of a significant event in Mahler's life: the composer's marital problems with the young and beautiful Alma. Mahler was then very busy with his Tenth Symphony (he left it unfinished) and suddenly found Alma in total defiance and reticence towards him although he always wanted to be `good and loving husband''. Alma had, she complained in her memoirs" submitted to his tyranny and neglect long enough; she felt used, drained by his self-absorption"". (Music) The truth of her rebellion is perhaps accentuated by Mahler's chronic inability to attain an erection for the performance of their sexual act. Mahler had in him duel sense of guilt and panic - panic that was painful in the presence of Walter Gropius on the scene. Mahler therefore decided to take immediate action and he conceived Freud as his only savior.
During that summer of 1910, Sigmund Freud was spending his vacation in Leyden, Holland when he received a telegram asking for an appointment. The following day Herr Doctor received another telegram cancelling the first one. Mahler was in a state of indecision, unsteadiness and fluctuating mood. This was well drawn by his unbalanced behaviors in dispatching too many telegrams before he managed to get over his ever-present opposition to any attempt to bring his repressed thoughts into consciousness. Mahler and Freud met in a Leyden hotel and spent some four hours loitering about the town. Freud, the thickset and trusted doctor and Mahler, the slender, ailing and vehement composer - were devouring their cigars as they walked and talked. The Doctor conducted a brief analysis of the conductor's grievances: ""A mother fixation "" Freud ruled. On the one hand "" Mahler was attracted by his wife's youthful beauty but resented the fact that she was not old and careworn like his mother"". Alma, on the other hand, ""had a father complex and found her husband's age appealing"". Mahler was twenty years her senior.

Jonathan Carr describes this episode with additional clarity: ""Gustav's father, Bernhard, had a travelling sales job too but he went one better than his mother (G. Mahler's Grandma) and got hold of a horse and cart. Reckoning that knowledge was power he read books voraciously, even studied French, in spare moments on trips. It was no love match on either side when in 1857 he married Maria Hermann (usually called Marie), daughter of a soap-boiler and, at nineteen, ten years his junior. She limped and had a weak heart but arguably it was a step up socially for Bernard and he would have got a dowry. The first child, Isidor, died soon after birth in 1858. The second was Gustav.
An authoritarian father, a suffering, constantly pregnant mother (14 children) brothers and sisters borne off regularly in coffins; that, alas, was still an all too familiar picture in the 19th. Century. It did not necessarily mean that children grew up psychologically maimed, still less that the pressures turned them into great creative artists. All the same, Mahler's family background makes it sorely (for many irresistibly) tempting to try fathom him and his music via the psychiatrist's couch. None other than Sigmund Freud did just that; at least, he made a stab at analyzing Mahler during a few hours stroll round the Dutch town of Leiden in 1910. The outcome was predictable. Freud concluded that Mahler had a Holy Mary complex (mother fixation) and unearthed an early incident which seemed to explain much about the character of Mahler's work. Mahler is said to have remembered that after a `specially painful scene'' between his parents, he ran out of the house and heard a passing barrel organ grinding out popular tune Ách du lieber Augustin. Hence, we are told, the stark contrast between the tragic and the banal became fixed in his mind for life. According to Freud's biographer, Ernest Jones, Mahler even `suddenly said that now he understood why his music had always been prevented from achieving the highest rank through the noblest passages... being spoilt by the intrusion of some commonplace melody".""
Freud's comment about a `Holy Mary complex'' has helped sustain a distorted view of Mahler's relation with his parents. Despite the `dreaming'', which Alma reports, Mahler was under no illusion about how things really were between Bernard and Marie. (His father and Mother) `'They were as ill-suited as fire and water", he told a lady-friend when he was in his mid thirties. ""He was all obstinacy, she was gentleness itself". Blunt words but not enough to justify the frequent claim Mahler hated his father and so identified with his mother that throughout his life he unconsciously imitated her limp. Demonstrably there were much of both his parents in Mahler, of Bernard certainly no less than Marie. He needed no barrel organ incident to fix the pain of stark contrast in his mind. It was already there. The battle between fire and water, as it were, was implanted in Mahler at birth and it never ceased to rage.""
This reminds me of the relationship between Mozart and his father- Leopold. Mahler's father encouraged his son to pursue piano lessons, hoping his son ""would become money-spinning virtuoso, and who later let him study at Vienna conservatory, though certainly not helping him much to pay the fees.""
Bernard was protective. ""when young, Gustav was mistreated by a family with whom he had been sent to stay in Prague, a wrathful Bernard descended, packed his son's things and took him straight home"" from his father, Gustav inherited, among other things, voracious ambition and unshakable will. ""At six or seven he was already giving piano lessons for about 5 crowns an hour and boxing his pupils sharply on the ears whenever they played a wrong note.""
The Austrian physician and founder of psychoanalysis - who theorized that the symptoms of hysterical patients represent forgotten and unresolved infantile psychosexual conflicts-, befitted Mahler's eccentricities. But, who was complexed of whom? Perhaps history would have been fairer had Alma went to see Freud as well.
Alma was a beautiful young lady. Like many people, I saw her picture in other publications, indeed she was very beautiful. Alma claims that Mahler 'feared women' and that their relationship was never really without danger, arguing that he had almost no sexual intercourse right up to his forties (he was 41 when they met). In fact, Mahler's long record of prior love affairs-- including a lengthy one with Anna von Mildenburg -- suggests that this was not the case. Whereas Alma's flirtation and first kiss was in her teens - as she boastfully said so. ".In her memoirs she must have been looking for an edge over Mahler. For instance, Alma Mahler (then Schindler) played piano from childhood and in her memoirs reports that she first attempted composing at age 9. Was that false or true??(She knew that Mahler's parents had arranged piano lessons for him when he was six)
During the emotional instability in their marriage after Mahler's discovery of the affair (Alma's infatuation with Walter Gropius 1883-1969 - a German architect and founder of Bauhaus and is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of "modern" architecture) Mahler took a sincere interest in Alma's musical compositions; completely regretting his earlier attitude when he dropped her talents out.
Upon Mahler's endeavoring, and under his coaching and assistance, Alma prepared five of her songs for publication (they were issued in 1910, by Mahler's own publisher, Universal Edition). His meeting with Freud couldn't have been to discuss Mahler's dynamite style of conducting because by 1910 his style changed and he eschewed all expansive gestures on the podium. But was `'Alma'' the ONLY crises they discussed? What else could they have had as sincere discussion and why? Backlog of hard feelings I believe; they had watched with apprehension the gradual encirclement of the Jews !! At the Opera, Mahler stubbornness in artistic perfection had created enemies, and he was subject to perpetual attacks from anti-Semitic circles in the press. His resignation from the Opera, 1907, was hardly unexpected. (Incidentally: Dreyfus affair divided France from the 1890s to the early 1900s and its repercussion continued until well after WWI)
The hard feelings of anti-Semitism must have adversely impacted his marital relationship with Alma? It could also have been ""the curse of the ninth"" - Mahler knew he would not live long after his composition of the Ninth symphony that he completed in 1908 (perhaps!).

By the way, Pages 227, 228, 229, 230 refer to RECORDINGS, but there is no mention of Herbert Von Karajan. This is strange indeed!! Symphonie No.9, and Das Lied von der Erde, are remarkable interpretations, performed in 1982 and 1975. The only reference is made on page 94 "" For comparison's sake,in his first five and a half years (1956-62) as Vienna Opera director, Herbert Von Karayan led just 168 performances - and he was no slouch"" whereas Mahler, in four years between his arrival in Vienna and his break with the Philharmionic, he conducted some 370 opera performances including nearly thirty premieres......

It's hard to believe that a book this thick and on such a compelling subject could be so disappointing. It begins ambitiously, and soon peaks with a single insightful paragraph drawing a parallel between the music of Berlioz and Mahler, but then gets down to the real business: lambasting poor old Alma, yet again. This exposition proves to be British in the worse sense--gossipy, slight, and tedious. Granted there's a ton of detail proving Alma wrote down the wrong date and time for the dinner party with Gustav, but do we really care? Carr moves in the direction of redeeming his effort with a compassionate and accurate account of Mahler's time in America, his final illness and death. That is 64 pages out of 254. May Amazon offer those in excerpt at 75% off!

Having some time to kill at the Illini Union Bookstore one dark December day, I found myself browsing through Carr's biography of Mahler. On flipping through the pages, my eyes lit on a wonderful photograph, worth a thousand words or even pages, one I'd never seen before. It showed Mahler's parents, and what I already knew intuitively rushed over me like a wave. I was struck by the apparent energy and volatility of the father, and by the spirituality and speaking suffering of the mother (though she looked like a pig). As we all know, these left a permanent mark on young Gustav. Indeed, no man was ever truer to the impressions of his childhood, or flew straighter throughout his whole life like an arrow to its goal. Even the salmon struggling up rapids to spawn and die in their native pools could take a lesson from Mahler in early imprinting.

This is an excellent book for those seeking a manageable and balanced short introduction to Mahler's life and work, and I recommend it highly. Why then only four stars? Well, the competition is stiff. For one thing, there's the huge and scholarly biography by Henri-Louis de la Grange in four volumes at last count, and even this gets only four stars according to some assessments. But the main reason is that the ultimate biography of Mahler is the Works themselves, and they are off the scale.

In the `Recommendations' chapter at the end of this biography, Jonathan Carr admits that more than 2500 books and essays have been published about the life and music of Gustav Mahler. "Keeping abreast of Mahler literature and recordings is no job for the faint-hearted (or impecunious)," the author states, and it can be conjectured, with so much available research, what need have we for yet another history of the composer? Yet Carr, a devoted fan for some forty years, has a deep-seated desire to shake up and disrupt the ever-expanding mythology surrounding Mahler, to counteract the long-held assumptions about the composer's life, creative output and reputation. Drawing upon unpublished letters, diaries, scores and other material unavailable in English, Carr focuses his scholarly scalpel upon the last decade of Mahler's life, contesting the perception of the man as a sickly, impotent tyrant, superstitious of death and therein obsessed; an account given by Mahler's widow, Alma, whom Carr - between the lines, and sometimes outright - sketches as a foolish young woman, alternately consumed with contempt, respect and jealousy for her husband, who distorted the record in order to protect her ego and enhance her own role in Mahler's tumultuous career. This autobiography, despite its sometime lurid, gossipy tone, does an effective job of re-examining the composer's lifework, and the legacy he imposed upon the 20th century.