Books by Norman Lebrecht

A unique chronicle of the hundred-year period when the Jewish people changed the world - and it changed them

A century after his death, Gustav Mahler is the most important composer of modern times. Displacing Beethoven as a box-office draw, his music offers more than the usual listening satisfactions. Many believe it has the power to heal emotional wounds and ease the pain of death. Others struggle with the intellectual fascination of its contradictory meanings. Long, loud and seldom easy, his symphonies are used to accompany acts of mourning and Hollywood melodramas. Sometimes dismissed as death-obsessed, Mahler is more alive in the 21st century than ever before. Why Mahler? Why does a Jewish musician from a land without a name capture the yearnings and anxieties of post-industrial society? Is it the music, it is the man, or is it the affinity we feel with his productive peak - a decade when Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Joyce and Mahler reconfigured the ways we understand life on earth? In this highly original account of Mahler's life and work, Norman Lebrecht - renowned writer, critic and cultural commentator - explores the Mahler Effect, a phenomenon that reaches deep into unsuspecting lives, altering the self-perceptions of world leaders, finance chiefs and working musicians. Why Mahler? is a multi-layered exploration of the role that music plays as a soundtrack to our lives.

Gustav Mahler is the most influential symphonist of the twentieth century. In this pioneering study, Norman Lebrecht reveals the man and musician through the words of his contemporaries.Using many previously unpublished documents, he constructs a profile of Mahler even more complex and compelling than that familiar from his letters and the often unreliable memoirs of his widow, Alma. Compassionate or callous, idealistic or pragmatic, Mahler aroused violently contrasting impressions and emotions in those who lived and worked with him.Accounts of the composer include the artist Alfred Roller's description of Mahler's naked body, a Nazi-era reappraisal by one of his closest relatives, Natalie Bauer-Lechner's unpublished jottings of Mahler's childhood, and Stefan Zweig's report of his final voyage. Together, they form a remarkable and deeply illuminating image of a formidable personality.'The effect is cumulative, sometimes contradictory and vivid - like a written version of a radio or film portrait.' Classical Music'Norman Lebrecht's Mahler Remembered is quite breathtakingly interesting.' Birmingham Post

Exposes the strange truth and sheer brilliance behind the classical music recording industry. This book charts its rise since Caruso's first gramophone bestseller of 1902 and predicts the industry's imminent doom in the face of schmaltzy crossover albums and technology.