Recently I had the pleasure of reading Mary Sharratt's new book, Ecstasy. A fiction based on fact book about composer, Alma Mahler, who was the wife of composer Gustav Mahler. Many thanks to her publisher for sending me the book.
Below is my review of Ecstasy with hopes that you the readers of my blog will read the book.
The late 19th century was
witness to three women composers of renown – Clara Wieck Schumann, Fanny Mendelsohn
Hensel and Alma Schindler Mahler. All
three had their compositional talents repressed by the men in their lives - Clara’s
husband, Robert, and Fanny by both her brother Felix and father. Alma Mahler’s pianistic skills, as well as
her intuitive and subtle understanding of music, portray a woman of musical
talent beyond the norm. Her career was
stifled by not only her mother but her composition teachers and future
husband. Clara and Alma’s husbands were over-achieving
and depressed individuals.
In Mary Sharratt’s new book, Ecstasy,
we are given an in-depth look at the music and life of Alma Mahler. Sharratt takes us on an emotional and musical
journey with its highs bordering manic behavior to lows of despair. And,
through it all the author guides the reader to see Alma as a woman who not only
survives what comes her way, but finds her own life’s path choosing whatever
manner she deems correct for herself. Ecstasy,
an historical and coming of age book, is one to read slowly while you absorb an
era long gone.
History tells us that Alma was not a
soft, demure person. She was
anti-Semitic yet married twice someone of the Jewish faith. She had her edges and demands based on her
family’s connection to the rich and famous of Vienna.
Alma’s allure caused artist Gustav Klimt
to give her her first kiss. He wanted to
paint her and seduce her. Alexander von Zemlinsky
taught her piano and yearned for her. He
saw her passionate understanding of the poetry she set to music. Penniless and knowing he could not afford to
support her in the manner she was brought to expect, he desperately wanted to
marry her. Alma, who caught the eye of
nearly every man of importance in Vienna, was a beauty with a personality that
absorbed adulation.
Vienna’s high society parties, the opera
house, walks in the park and the beautiful clothing worn by the rich are
described by the author with vivid attention to detail. The reader felt immersed in the moment of
Vienna’s magical glory.
The depth of research about Alma Mahler
is apparent from the opening sentence of the book. We are introduced to her accompanying her
mother, a soprano, singing art songs.
Alma is easily drawn to the audience member, Gustav Klimt, who has given
her a great deal of attention. Thus
begins the path of each man who enters her life. A slight flirtation by this beautiful woman
and men become her love interest. With
great concern over proper behavior and correct manners, she insists her music
comes first. Her songs with their
painstaking choice of texts to express her longings, despair and ongoing fear
of love express what is suppressed in her.
Ms. Sharratt’s colorful and descriptive
language paints for the reader a woman of some naiveté whose underlying goal is
to marry a man of fame and be kept as properly as she wants. We see a soft, feminine side with
disappointment and despair that make us sympathetic to her.
At the opera, Alma is introduced to
Gustav Mahler.
Her infatuation with the
famous composer and conductor, a man considerably older than she, becomes
intense and his interest in her is ignited.
Her mother and stepfather voice their concern over her involvement with
someone of the Jewish faith. They express
to Alma the crime of her future children having a Jewish father. No one will stop Alma from marrying a man of
high esteem in the music world who would not disregard her songs and who she
loves passionately.
The couple’s engagement and marriage
were the highlight of Vienna’s season with the press following their every
move. Sharratt captures the monetary
woes, destination travel exhaustion and two creative personalities bound
together in love and a husband’s career.
With clarity she describes the roller coaster marriage of Gustav and
Alma. She leads the reader to believe
you are one of the characters involved in their everyday happenings. Gustav’s
total commitment to his conducting career and in his off-season vacation,
composing, leave Alma alone, void of a partner to participate in her emotions
and desires. She has become, in some
ways, a trophy wife who is deeply loved yet must understand her place as wife,
mother and organizer of her composer husband’s hectic career. With the loss of their oldest daughter, a
chasm of grief and non-communication grows.
Sharratt’s writing connects us with Alma’s grief and the reader hopes
she will come through this time. We feel
her doubts and anger. We crave for her
to express herself in a more forthright fashion.
Alma’s passions and desires culminate in
an affair with architect Walter Gropius, who would become her second husband. She has made a decision of the heart to
attend to what she defines is her need for love and understanding. She openly admits to ardently loving both
men. When Mahler challenges her about
the affair, Alma returns to him. Mahler falls
ill and she becomes his caretaker until his death. Only after his death, does she realize how
much Gustav wanted her to be his soul mate, the love of his life and the person
who kept him grounded amidst the demands of his music career.
Author Mary Sharratt completes Ecstasy
with Alma’s return to her lover, Walter.
A confrontation between the two questioning each other’s fidelity and
love is a scene where Sharratt leaves the reader with a view of the woman Alma
was in real life. Alma was a determined,
self-absorbed, articulate woman in control of her life no matter what may come
her way.
