Alma [Schindler] Mahler (1879 - 1964)

Although Alma [Schindler] Mahler was better known during her lifetime as a "personality" than as a creative musician, she was a working composer before, during, and after her marriage to Gustav Mahler. Alma Mahler studied counterpoint and composition with composer Alexander Zemlinsky, who also taught Arnold Schoenberg. Sadly, many of her early compositions did not survive World War II, disappearing when she left Austria in 1938. When she returned to Vienna after the war, she found that her house had been bombed, destroying almost everything. Today her total extant musical legacy consists of three books of songs published during her lifetime, plus two additional songs, Aus dem Cyclus: "Mütter" by Rainer Maria Rilke, which survived in manuscript and are published for the first time by Hildegard. Without definite knowledge of how these two unpublished songs survived, the editor of this edition presumes that the manuscripts were brought to the United States by an unknown recipient who has not yet been identified. Mahler's Vier Lieder are also now available.