#Alma Mahler-Werfel

[gogmstuff]

Alma Mahler-Werfel (born Alma Margaretha Maria Schindler; 31 August 1879 – 11 December 1964) was an Austrian composer, author, editor, and socialite. Musically active from her early years, she was the composer of nearly fifty songs for voice and piano, and works in other genres as well. 17 songs are known to have survived. At 15, she was mentored by Max Burckhard.  She married composer Gustav Mahler, who later began to support her in composing and assisted in preparing some of her works for publication, but he died in 1911.

In 1915, Alma married Walter Gropius, and they had a daughter, Manon Gropius. Throughout her marriage to Gropius, Alma engaged in an affair with Franz Werfel. Following her separation from Gropius, Alma and Werfel eventually married.

In 1938, after Nazi Germany annexed Austria, Werfel and Alma fled, as it was unsafe for the Jewish Werfel. Eventually the couple settled in Los Angeles. In later years, her salon became part of the artistic scene, first in Vienna, then in Los Angeles and New York.

A satirical singer, Tom Lehrer, composed a ditty when she died. It began:

[Verse] The loveliest girl in Vienna Was Alma, the smartest as well Once you picked her up on your antenna You'd never be free of her spell Her lovers were many and varied From the day she began her beguine There were three famous ones whom she married And God knows how many between

[Chorus] Alma, tell us: All modern women are jealous Which of your magical wands Got you Gustav and Walter and Franz?

Here are two photos of her.

1909 Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel. From faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1096/fj.10-0801ufm.

Alma Mahler-Werfel by ?. From tumblr.com/beautifulcentury/730905452781649920?source=share&.

[lesser-known-composers]

Alma Mahler-Werfel (1879-1964)

[artisthomes]

Home of Franz Werfel and Alma Mahler in Sanary-sur-Mer, France

[beebeetheclown]

Jeremy Strong’s Favourite Books

Incase anyone is crazy like me and wants to know what he likes lol

Book Summary Links:

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Angel of Response - Wallace Stegner

Summary

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel

Summary

Diaries 1898-1902 - Alma Mahler Werfel

Summary

Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke

Summary

Swann’s Way: In Search of Lost Time (volume 1) - Marcel Proust

Summary

Four Quarters - T.S Eliot

Summary

The Man Who Owns The News - Michael Wolff

Summary

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Summary

The Caretaker - Harold Printer

Summary

My Struggle - Karl Ove Knausgaard

Summary

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🐝~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

^crying. Not me having already read “The Caretaker” and “Letters to a Young Poet” before I knew he liked them?!😭. We’d so be friends in college I don’t care what anyone else says.

[ruknowhere]

"Between too early and too late there is

only a moment"

-Alma Mahler

Alma Mahler-Werfel (born Alma Margaretha Maria Schindler; 31 August 1879 – 11 December 1964) was an Austrian composer, author, editor, and socialite

[alioshakaramazov]

the list:

Alma Mahler Werfel: Diaries 1898-1902 (tr. Antony Beaumont)

Wallace Stegner. The Spectator Bird

Robert Johnson. Inner Work

Harold Pinter. Caretaker

Declan Donnellan. The Actor and the Target

Jon Kabat-Zinn. Wherever You Go There You Are

T. S. Eliot. Four Quartets

Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke 1892-1910

Marcel Proust. In Search of Lost Time vol. II

James Salter. Light Years

Karl Ove Knausgaard. My Struggle, Book 1

jeremy bringing books to his silly gq video is absolutely SENDING me. he is a king i think.

[valkyries-things]

ALMA MAHLER // COMPOSER

“She was an Austrian composer, author, editor and socialite. Musically active from her early years, she was the composer of nearly fifty songs for voice and piano, and works in other genres as well. 17 songs are known to have survived. She married composer Gustav Mahler, who later began to support her in composition and assisted in preparing some of her works for publication. Mahler and her third husband, Franz Werfel, fled Austria after Nazi Germany annexed it in 1938, settling in Los Angeles.”

[artsculturevienna]

Oskar KOKOSCHKA (1886-1980) “Drawings”

[lesser-known-composers]

Alma Maria Mahler Werfel (1879-1964) - 5 Lieder: No. 1, Die stille Stadt

Iris Vermillion · Cord Garben

[thesaetzeundschaetzeuniverse]

Michael Lichtwarck-Aschoff: Der Sohn des Sauschneiders

Michael Lichtwarck-Aschoff: Der Sohn des Sauschneiders

Bild von analogicus auf Pixabay

„Der Grottenolm kommt blind auf die Welt. Wozu bräuchte er in der Dunkelheit, in der er sein Leben verbringt, auch Augen. Aber die Anlagen zu Augen hat er. Und wenn er in zwei Heimaten leben kann, in einer finsteren und einer taghellen – könnte er dann nicht auch lernen, seine Augen zu öffnen, sie aus den flachen Gruben heraus, in denen sie schlummern, zum vollen…

[legitime-demence]

Licht in der Nacht

*******

[sixty-silver-wishes]

okay okay okay. KOKOSCHKA

so that painting on the bottom left is called the bride of the wind. and ohohoho it has some HISTORY

the man in that picture is kokoschka. the woman there is a real piece of work named alma mahler gropius werfel, of tom lehrer fame. she was. well. the best way I can describe alma is “infuriatingly fascinating.” absolute horrible person, a headache for historians, but goddamn she had an insane life. basically, alma was married to the composer gustav mahler, and was a composer herself before mahler said she had to give up composing bc he didn’t believe two composers could work out as a couple (tell that to the schumanns, but I digress). alma was considerably younger than him, and probably didn’t know what she was getting into, so she agreed.

bad, bad, bad plan.

so. while alma and gustav’s marriage started out relatively okay, it went downhill Fast. for one, alma was a notorious anti-semite, and gustav was ethnically jewish (he converted to catholicism for career reasons, but was religiously agnostic). alma had this weird habit of being very fetishistic and possessive, which put her at odds with gustav’s sister justine, whom he was very close with. on gustav’s end, he was extremely dedicated to his art and career, often to the point of overlooking the needs of others. this whole mess came to a head when their daughter maria died. both were distraught, but because alma had a lot of complicated feelings at the time and didn’t have a creative outlet (remember, she gave up composing), she started an affair with one walter gropius, whom you may know as the founder of the bauhaus school of architecture.

gustav found out eventually, tried to apologize, saw sigmund freud for a therapy session (yeah), even published some of alma’s old songs to make it up to her. and worse yet, he was getting deathly ill from heart issues and pneumonia. and yet alma still kept up her affair with gropius, writing him steamy letters while being really, really weird about her “poor, helpless” husband’s terminal illness and how much of a saint she was for taking care of him (she also viewed herself as racially superior and had some sort of “gentile savior” complex that kinda tied into it. there are letters on record and it’s really really gross), and was basically waiting for him to die so she could marry gropius (she even says this in a letter!).

so, gustav dies (on gropius’ birthday. I can’t make this up), but alma doesn’t marry gropius immediately. she does eventually, but first, she has a string of affairs, including with expressionist painter oskar kokoschka, whose art is depicted here.

they were. Also horrible for each other. yeah, alma’s terrible, manipulative, psychologically abusive (even to her two daughters, but that’s another story), and has a nasty habit of manipulating the historical record by destroying letters and fabricating shit to make herself look good (look up the “alma problem” on wikipedia. she does this so much there’s a term for it). but kokoschka was also. disgusting. dude is also very possessive of her, obsessed with painting her, did something really gross when she got an abortion that I’m not going to get into, but you can look that up on the alma mahler website if you’re curious. alma eventually decides she’s had enough of kokoschka and dumps his ass.

but kokoschka hasn’t had enough of alma. oh no.

so, kokoschka goes to dollmaker hermine moos and commissions. a life size. poseable. alma mahler. sex doll.

just. just process that for a bit.

we’re good?

good.

SO.

he takes the thing with him everywhere. dresses it, drags it to the opera, normal things you do with an enormous sex doll of your ex. until he decides he’s had enough of it, invites all his friends to a party, breaks a bottle of wine over its head, and beheads it.

which. most normal expressionist artist

here’s the doll btw. you’re welcome

[principleofplenitude]

Escapades from the life of Alma Mahler

At one point, after a kiss [Klimt] attempted to put his hand “on [her] heart” beneath her blouse. At another, Klimt suggested “complete physical union.” Alma’s response is wonderful, an indication of both her savvy and her innocence: she held a volume of Faust and quoted from it: “Do no favors without a ring on your finger.”

She was such a committed flirt that when, in mourning for Klimt, she stopped flirting for a while, her mother consulted a doctor (an anatomist, the husband of a friend; one wonders what his diagnosis could possibly have been).

Gustav followed a strenuous exercise program, and Alma, huffing and puffing, was required to accompany him on long, steep hikes through the mountains, even during pregnancy. When Alma was in agony during labor, Mahler tried to “distract” her by reading aloud—from Kant.

Gustav even invited Gropius, who was spotted hiding like a troll beneath a bridge, to come to the house, then respectfully retreated so the lovers could decide what to do. It is a scene from an overwrought opera, but it was real and ravaging to all three of them.

And through it all, he painted her. When she had an abortion (she wrote that she was afraid of “what might grow in me”), Kokoschka took a blood-stained cotton pad from her and kept it with him, saying, “That is, and will always be, my only child.” He painted bloody, murdered children. He drew “Alma Mahler Spinning with Kokoschka’s Intestine.” He insisted that she cover her arms with long sleeves. Kokoschka painted Alma entwined with him in a boat on a stormy sea, he painted Alma rising to the heavens while he stood in hell surrounded by snakes. Anna watched him work and asked, “Can’t you paint anything else except Mommy?”

Alma spent the rest of the war in Vienna fending off suitors, but she was, she wrote, though “desired by so many creatures…. STILL SO ALONE…ALONE.”

—all from “It Had to Be Her” from New York Review of Books