Synopsis

On today’s date in 1902, composer Gustav Mahler, 41, married Alma Schindler, 22. Mahler was the famous director of the Vienna Court Opera, and by 1902 had written four symphonies. Schindler was considered one of the most beautiful women in Vienna, and also independent, unpredictable and remarkably free-spirited.

Perhaps that, as much as her beauty, appealed to Mahler, but many of the composer’s longtime friends did not approve and predicted disaster. One of them even suggested the composer convert to Protestantism, which would make getting a divorce easier in ultra-Catholic Vienna.

On today’s date in 1902, a large crowd of curious onlookers gathered in Vienna’s majestic Baroque Karlskirche at 5:30 p.m., the time the wedding was thought to take place, only to discover the couple had been married hours earlier in the privacy of its sacristy with just the immediate family present.

The next symphony that Mahler wrote, his Fifth, contains a lovely adagietto movement that Mahler’s friend Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg claims was inspired by Alma.

“It was his declaration of love. Instead of a letter, he confided it in this manuscript without a word of explanation,” Mengelberg said. “She understood. He tells her everything in music.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 5; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Riccardo Chailly, cond. London 458 860