Passionate Spirit

The Life of Alma Mahler

De: Cate Haste

Narrado por: Helen Lloyd

A new biography of Alma Mahler (1879-1964), revealing a woman determined to wield power in a world that denied her agency....

History has long vilified Alma Mahler. Critics accused her of distracting Gustav Mahler from his work, and her passionate love affairs shocked her peers. Drawing on Alma's vivid, sensual, and overlooked diaries, biographer Cate Haste recounts the untold and far more sympathetic story of this ambitious and talented woman. Though she dreamed of being the first woman to compose a famous opera, Alma was stifled by traditional social values. Eventually, she put her own dreams aside and wielded power and influence the only way she could, by supporting the art of more famous men. She worked alongside them and gained credit as their muse, commanding their love and demanding their respect.

Passionate Spirit restores vibrant humanity to a woman time turned into a caricature, providing an important correction to a history where systemic sexism has long erased women of talent.

©2019 Cate Haste (P)2019 Hachette Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"In this sympathetic, engrossing biography of Viennese socialite and composer Alma Mahler, Haste traces Mahler's struggle to find equilibrium among her men (all creative geniuses), her erotic desires, and her own musical ambition." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

"A well-rounded portrait of an imperious woman and her eventful life." (Kirkus Reviews)

A truly moving story

This is the second book about Alma Mahler that I read in the last couple of weeks, the first one being “Malevolent Muse: The Life of Alma Mahler” by Oliver Hilmes. These two books show different prospective on the image of Alma Mahler, as Hilmes’ book seems to aim at dethroning the typical mythical image of Alma as the sensual muse and demi-goddess, while Passionate Spirit is virtually in agreement with this image and presents the life of Alma in much more romantic manner. My modest advice to everyone who is taking on Alma’s life is to read both books. In fact, Cate Haste’s book is so much influenced by Oliver Hilmes’ one that at certain moments one has the impression that she is simply following his “script”, only changing the wording. One major disadvantage of Passionate Spirit is that the author does not seem to doubt any of Alma Mahler’s memories, letters or diaries, when today we know (partly due to Mr. Hilmes’ book) that a significant portion of her recollections has been shamelessly “edited” by Alma post-factum, or it is simply not true.

Regarding the narrator, I truly enjoyed the reading, except one single element that was constantly driving me nuts and this was the disastrous mispronunciation of probably 80% of the names in the book.