Film: Mahler in New York
The New York Premiere of new film Mahler in New York with special introduction by director Hilan Warshaw and in collaboration with the Mahler Society of New York.
A giant of Europe finds himself on the streets of Manhattan. Thousands of miles from the land where he experienced his triumphs and torments, he unexpectedly discovers a new world, all the while living under the shadow of impending death.
As both composer and conductor, Gustav Mahler was one of the most pivotal figures of late-nineteenth-century European music. But the final years of his life were largely spent in New York City. Here, among the bustle of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, he worked on his last symphonies, transformed New York’s musical life through his leadership of both the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera, and confronted the greatest emotional crisis of his life.
Weaving together performances, location footage, re-enactments and interviews with musical luminaries (including Joseph Horowitz, Gianandrea Noseda, Nathalie Stutzmann, and Franz-Welser Möst), Hilan Warshaw’s film Mahler in New York recreates the little-known Manhattan sojourn of this legendary European Jewish composer/conductor. Fleeing Viennese anti-Semitism and personal tragedy, Mahler revelled in the pluralism of New York, a place he referred to as a “spiritual home”; but there were further upheavals in store. After his death, in a world reeling from world wars, American composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein – in many ways Mahler’s spiritual heir- and others resurrected and popularized Mahler for a new world finally ready to understand him.
A deep dive into some of the greatest music ever created and a heartbreaking love story about two brilliant and incompatible spouses, Gustav and Alma Mahler, this film also reconsiders Mahler’s legacy to explore his message for today’s troubled world.