THE COMPOSER Alma Mahler — What'shername

Alma Schindler Mahler was a brilliant composer, pianist, and “influencer” who has largely been remembered only for the men with whom she had relationships. Her musical compositions are finally beginning to be recognized for their brilliance and performed on stage in the past few years, and her reputation as a “femme fatale” is long overdue for an overhaul. The “It Girl” of turn of the century Vienna, Alma Schindler was a famed wit, a renowned beauty, and a gifted pianist whose highest ambition, despite the restrictions put on her musical education, was to be a composer. After giving up her own work to marry “rock star” composer Gustav Mahler, Alma Mahler supported his career for nearly a decade until a series of tragedies led her to reclaim her own identity and creative work. After Gustav’s death, Alma Mahler would have several relationships and two more marriages, and her life would span a dizzying breadth of world events from Golden Age Vienna to a Sound of Music-style escape from the invading Nazi forces in France to Hollywood at the height of its glamour.

Join our guest, acclaimed author Mary Sharratt, as we discuss her new novel Ecstasy, and the extraordinary life of Alma Mahler. This episode also includes excerpts from “Art Sung, a collaborative stage performance celebrating the life and works of Alma Mahler, featuring Liz Mucha and Alexandra Weaver.

Alma Schindler (left) age 9, with her mother and sister, around 1888

Alma Mahler with daughters Maria and Anna Mahler

Alma with Walter Gropius and their daughter Manon

“Portrait of Alma Mahler”
by Oskar Kokoschka 1912

“Bride of the Wind”
by Oskar Kokoschka, 1913 (portrait of himself and Alma Mahler)

Franz Werfel, Alma’s third husband
photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1940
photo from Library of Congress collection

Maria Anna Mahler
Alma’s first child 1902-1908

Anna Justine Mahler
Alma’s second child 1904-1988

Manon Gropius
Alma’s third child 1916-1935

Martin Carl Johannes Werfel
Alma’s fourth child 1918-1919

Mary Sharratt is the award-winning author of seven historical novels and is “on a mission to write women back into history.” Ecstasy, her book about the life of Alma Mahler, was published in April 2018. Born in Minnesota, Mary lives with her Belgian husband in Lancashire, England. Her books span women’s history from the medieval visionary Hildegard of Bingen to Elizabethan poet Emilia Lanier to the Pendle Witches. Mary’s articles and essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, Publisher’s Weekly, and Historical Novels Review. When she isn’t writing, she’s usually riding her spirited Welsh mare through the Lancashire countryside.

Music featured in this episode included:

“Waldseligkeit,” “Ansturm,” “Bei dir ist es Traut,” “Hymne” and “Ich wandle unter Blumen”
recorded live during a performance of Art Sung by Liz Mucha and Alexandra Weaver

“Laue Sommernacht” performed by Dr. Amanda Setlik Wilson