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 became a fixture of Vienna's fin de siècle cultural scene, and struck up friendships and relationships with a number of notable artists and composers.Susanne Rode-Breymann: Die Komponistin Alma Mahler-Werfel (Hannoversche Hefte zur Theatergeschichte, Doppelheft 10, 158 Seiten), Niedersächsisches Staatstheater, Hannover 1999, .
Alma was trained in composition by Max Burckhard, but ceased her compositional activity in 1902, when she married composer Gustav Mahler, who died in 1911. Between 1911 and 1914 she had a passionate affair with Oskar Kokoschka. 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 to France, as it was unsafe for the Jewish Werfel in Austria. In 1940, they escaped via Spain and Portugal to the US. Eventually, the couple settled in Los Angeles. In later years, her salon became part of the artistic scene (as before in Vienna), first in Los Angeles, then in New York.
Early years Alma Maria Schindler was born on 31 August 1879 in Vienna, Austria, (then Austria-Hungary) to the famous landscape painter Emil Jakob Schindler and his wife Anna Sofie. She was tutored at home and brought up in the Catholic Church. In 1886, Crown Prince Rudolf found interest in Emil Jakob Schindler's paintings and commissioned Schindler to take a trip with his family to the Adriatic coast to produce landscape paintings. In 1892, the family also traveled to the North Sea island of Sylt, where Emil Schindler died.
After her father's death, Alma focused on the piano. She studied composition and counterpoint with Josef Labor, a blind organist who introduced her to a "great deal of literature". At 15, she was sent to school but attended for only a few months. As she grew older, a case of childhood measles left her with decreased hearing. Max Burckhard, a friend of Emil Schindler and director of Vienna's Burgtheater theater, became Alma's mentor. On Alma's 17th birthday, Burckhard gave her two laundry baskets full of books. In 1895, Anna Schindler, Alma's mother, married Carl Moll, Emil Schindler's student. In 1899 they had a daughter together named Maria.
Alma met Gustav Klimt through Carl Moll. Moll and Klimt were both founding members of the Vienna Secession, "a group organized for the purpose of breaking with Vienna's tradition-bound Imperial Academy of the visual arts". Klimt fell in love with Alma. While she initially was interested in Klimt, her desire cooled soon after. Klimt and Alma were friends until Klimt's death. In autumn 1900, Alma began studying composition with Alexander von Zemlinsky. Zemlinsky and Alma fell in love and kept their relationship a secret.
Alma teased Zemlinsky about what she thought were his ugly features, saying she could easily have "ten others" to replace him. She also noted that to marry Zemlinsky would mean she would "bring short, degenerate Jew-children into the world". As the relationship grew strained, Zemlinsky visited her less and less. On 7 November 1901, she attended Zuckerkandl's salon where she began a flirtation with Gustav Mahler. In the month of November, while still in a relationship with Zemlinsky, she started an affair with Mahler. By 8 December, Mahler and Alma secretly were engaged; however, it was not until 12 December that she wrote to Zemlinsky about her engagement. The engagement was formally announced on 23 December.
As a composer Alma played the piano from childhood and in her memoir (Mein Leben), reports that she first attempted composing at age eight in the beginning of 1888 on the Greek island of Corfu. She studied composition with Josef Labor beginning in 1894 or 1895 and until 1901. She met Alexander von Zemlinsky in early 1900, began composition lessons with him that fall, and continued as his student until her engagement to Gustav Mahler in December 1901, after which she ceased composing. Until this time, she had composed or sketched mostly Lieder, but around 20 piano pieces and a small number of chamber music works, and a scene from an opera. She briefly resumed composing in 1910, but stopped in 1915. The chronology of her compositions is difficult to establish because she did not date her manuscripts and destroyed many of them herself. Attempts to establish a chronological list of her works have been made by Susanne Rode-Breymann in 1999 and 2014 and by Knud Martner in 2018.
A total of 17 songs by her survive. Fourteen were published during her lifetime in three publications dated 1910, 1915, and 1924. The first two volumes appeared under the name Alma Maria Schindler-Mahler, and the last volume was published as "Fünf Gesänge" by Alma Maria Mahler; the cover of the 1915 set was illustrated by Oskar Kokoschka. Three additional songs were discovered in manuscripts posthumously; two of them were published in the year 2000, edited by Susan M. Filler, and one published in 2018, edited by Barry Millington. Her personal papers, including music manuscripts, are held at the University of Pennsylvania, the Austrian National Library in Vienna, and the Bavarian State Library in Munich. These songs have been performed and recorded regularly since the 1980s. Orchestral versions of the accompaniments have been produced. Seven songs were orchestrated by David and Colin Matthews (published by Universal Edition), and all 17 songs were orchestrated by Julian Reynolds, and by Jorma Panula. In recent decades, Mahler's compositions have received renewed scholarly attention, particularly through feminist musicology.
Works Compositions cited from Mahler, A Complete Songs unless otherwise noted. Five Songs for voice and piano (published in January 1911) (i) Die stille Stadt (The Quiet Town; Richard Dehmel) (ii) In meines Vaters Garten (In My Father's Garden; Erich Otto Hartleben)Note: The original poem is entitled Französisches Wiegenlied or Volkslied, and was composed between May and August 1899. (iii) Laue Sommernacht (Mild Summer's Night; Bierbaum)Note: The original title of the poem is Gefunden. (iv) Bei dir ist es traut (With You It Is Pleasant; Rilke) (v) Ich wandle unter Blumen (I Stroll Among Flowers; Heine) Four Songs for voice and piano (published in June 1915) (i) Licht in der Nacht (Light in the Night; Bierbaum) (ii) Waldseligkeit (Woodland Bliss; Dehmel) (iii) Ansturm (Storm; Dehmel) (iv) Erntelied (Harvest Song; Gustav Falke)The original title is Gesang am Morgen (Song at Dawn). Five Songs for voice and piano (published in April 1924) (i) Hymne (Hymn; Novalis) (ii) Ekstase (Ecstasy; Bierbaum) (iii) Der Erkennende (The Recognizer; Werfel) (iv) Lobgesang (Song of Praise; Dehmel) (v) Hymne an die Nacht (Hymn to the Night; Novalis) Posthumously published Leise weht ein erstes Blühn (Softly Drifts a First Blossom; Rilke), for voice and piano (published 2000 by Susan M. Filler) Kennst du meine Nächte? (Do You Know My Nights?; Leo Greiner), for voice and piano (published 2000 by Susan M. Filler) Einsamer Gang (Lonely Walk, Leo Greiner), for voice and piano (published London 2018 by Barry Millington)
Marriage to Gustav Mahler
On 9 March 1902, she married Gustav Mahler, who was 19 years her senior and the director of the Vienna Court Opera. With him she had two daughters, Maria Anna (1902–1907), who died of scarlet fever or diphtheria, and Anna (1904–1988), who later became a sculptor. Gustav was not interested in Alma's compositions, desiring her to abandon composing. Although one scholar disputes whether or not Gustav outright forbade Alma Mahler to compose, the lengthy letter Gustav sent her on 19 December 1901 is emphatic that she must give up composing, and Alma did artistically stifle herself and embraced the role of a loving wife and supporter of her husband's music.
In June 1910, after becoming severely depressed in the wake of Maria's death, Alma began an affair with the young architect Walter Gropius (later head of the Bauhaus), whom she met during a rest at a spa. Gustav sought advice from Sigmund Freud in August. The 2010 film Mahler on the Couch suggests that Gustav's consultations with Freud might have focused on his curtailing of Alma's musical career as a major marital obstacle, but the actual content of these meetings is not known.
Following the emotional crisis in their marriage after Gustav's discovery of Alma's affair with Gropius, Gustav began to take a serious interest in Alma's musical compositions, regretting his earlier dismissive attitude and taking promotional actions. Gustav edited some of her songs (Die stille Stadt, In meines Vaters Garten, Laue Sommernacht, Bei dir ist es traut, Ich wandle unter Blumen). Upon his urging and under his guidance, Alma prepared five of her songs for publication (they were issued in 1910, by Gustav's own publisher, Universal Edition).
In February 1911, Gustav fell severely ill with an infection related to a heart defect that had been diagnosed several years earlier. He died on 18 May.
Relationship with Walter Gropius After Gustav's death, Alma did not immediately resume contact with Gropius. From 1911 to 1912, she had an affair with Paul Kammerer, a controversial Austrian biologist known for his experiments on living amphibians such as olms and midwife toads. She even served as his laboratory assistant for a time. Between 1912 and 1914 she had a tumultuous affair with the artist Oskar Kokoschka, who created works inspired by their relationship, including his painting The Bride of the Wind. Kokoschka's possessiveness wore on Alma, and the emotional vicissitudes of the relationship tired them both.
With the coming of World War I, Kokoschka enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Alma subsequently distanced herself from Kokoschka and resumed contact with Walter Gropius, who was also serving in combat at that time. She and Gropius married on 18 August 1915 in Berlin during one of his military leaves. They had a daughter together, Manon Gropius (1916–1935), who grew up being friends with Maria Altmann. After Manon died of polio at the age of 18, composer Alban Berg dedicated his newly composed Violin Concerto to her, "In Memory of an Angel".
Alma became pregnant and gave birth to a son, Martin Carl Johannes Gropius (1918–1919). Gropius at first believed that the child was his, but Alma's ongoing affair with Franz Werfel was common knowledge in Vienna by this time. Within a year, Alma and Gropius agreed to a divorce. In the meantime, Martin, who had been born prematurely, developed hydrocephalus and died at 10 months. Alma's divorce from Gropius became final in October 1920.
Relationship with Franz Werfel
While Gropius's military duties were still keeping him absent, Alma met and began an affair with Prague-born poet and writer Franz Werfel in the fall of 1917. She and Werfel began openly living together after her divorce from Gropius. However, she postponed marrying Werfel until 1929, after which she took the name Alma Mahler-Werfel.