Alma Mahler-Werfel was the epitome of a creative muse and a tantalizing femme fatale. She was married to composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius, writer Franz Werfel and the lover of painter Oskar Kokoschka, while her seductiveness also gained her influence far into the spheres of church and politics. Her correspondence with Arnold Schönberg, however, shows a new side of her strong personality. It is now available for the first time. Haide Tenner compiled a selection of letters from the more than 40 years of this special relationship. They show Alma Mahler the sponsor, patron and fighter for the ones she believed in, and they tell the story of a sometimes problematic friendship, of wounded pride on both parts, of loneliness and mutual appreciation in their shared exile. An insightful testimony, the impressive legacy of a friendship spanning half a century.

A highly successful biography, this book by the Viennese music journalist and author Monika Mertl presents the personality, artistic intentions and unconventional development of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the famous Austrian conductor, from cellist to conductor, from ancient music specialist to universalist with a distinctive image. More than 15.000 copies of the original German edition, published in autumn 1999, have already been sold. Beyond the conventional biography, Mertl’s book is an invitation to meet the man behind the brilliant facade of artistic success, to reflect on music as well as on questions of partnership, family, religion, philosophy and humanity.

Beethoven’s music has been part of Rudolf Buchbinder’s life since his childhood. He has played nearly fifty cyclical concerts of all thirty-two piano sonatas, and performed the piano concertos with all major orchestras and conductors, as well as conducting himself. This wealth of experience has found its way into his book, in which Beethoven’s piano works are used as stations on a journey through the composer’s life and oeuvre. Describing his own life in music, Buchbinder the performer brings Beethoven’s world to life, reflected in his personal experiences and revelations – Beethoven’s era, his emotions, passions, triumphs and defeats.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt devoted himself to the study of early music, the way it is played and the sound of period instruments from an early age. In 1953 he founded the famous Concentus Musicus with his wife Alice and other musicians. This was to provide a forum for his work on period instruments and the historic performance practice of renaissance and baroque music. It was not until four years later that the Concentus Musicus first performed in public. Alice Harnoncourt has brought together the unpublished diary entries and notes of her husband, which recount his explorations on the trail of early musical sounds. It is a fascinating and entertaining journey, during which Harnoncourt had to accomplish much to listen his way towards the original period sound.