Gustav Mahler. Visionary and Despot

With the terms «visionary» and «despot», the author seeks to circumscribe the multilayered personality of Gustav Mahler. Opening up a terra incognita, he draws a comprehensive map of the various aspects of Mahler’s inner biography: his unshakable belief in the «sacredness of musical art» and strongly developed sense of mission, his double life as conductor and composer, his inexorability and refusal to compromise vis-à-vis himself and others, his discomfort with the world in which he lived, the