Ecstacy

by Mary Sharratt

This is the fictionalized story of the wife of Gustav Mahler.  Alma who becomes his wife was an aspiring composer however her family scoffed at her desires and insisted she should marry.  She falls in love with her piano tutor but her family sends him packing.  When Mahler shows up and falls for her they urge her to marry him.  She is in love with him or at least his presence and brilliance.  They marry and she is very upset that he is so demanding including telling her she should not compose or even play the piano, that her job is to support him.  She gets pregnat and eventually has two children but she remains unfulfilled and unhappy. Several times she is sent to spas or instituions to recover her health, mental state.  Sometimes it is after miscarriages. 

She struggles with her unhappiness.  One of their children dies of diptheria, both she and Mahler are devastated and their relationship deteriorates, he seems to blame her when she has another miscarriage accusing her of wanting it to happen.

Mahler's popularity in Vienna wanes and he takes a job in New York as a conductor. She tries to give him advice about how to be more approachable re: the requests of his patrons but he is so self obsessed he chastises her for trying to tell him what to do.

They return to Europe for the summers and one year Alma is again at sanitorium.  She meets Walter Gropius, the architect, and they fall in love and have an affair.  Gropius wants her to run away with him but Alma Mahler needs her and she should stay with him.   Alma's mother, who had a child out of an affair does what she can to allow Alma and Gropious to spend some time together.   Gropius is furious that Alma will not leave Mahler for him and sends a letter by which Mahler discovers the truth.  In a strange twist it seems that this knowledge brings Mahler and Alma closer together. He starts to realize how he may have harmed her and encourages her to compose again, even getting some of her pieces published.  She stays with him until his death but finally feels really free once he has died.

The author did a great job of presenting the atmosphere at the time, the powerful emotions of Alma and Mahler.  It was an interesting read focussing on how women's dreams are surrendered to the needs of the men in their lives.  But not all women are subservient, Alma knows some women who are successful professional artists.  She is surprised about the power and influence women of rich men have in America.