The Mahler Monologues

We have no moving images of Gustav Mahler but there are photos, texts and music who have been brought together to form a whole.

“The Mahler Monologues” sketch an image of the person Gustav Mahler, who struggles with life and with himself, but who can also be cheerful, loving and moody: in short, as he sounds in his music. He is his music.

We have no moving images of Mahler and no recordings of his voice, but only a piano roll through which we can hear how he performed, among other music, his Fourth Symphony on a piano. But there are photos: Gustav Mahler is one of the first composers who, from his early youth to his death at the age of fifty, was continually and frequently photographed. And there are texts. By people who lived with Mahler and wrote both about him and with him. Bruno Walter, Willem Mengelberg, Alfred Roller, and Natalie Bauer-Lechner, his best-loved woman friend until he married Alma. And then Alma herself of course. And needless to say there is his music. His symphonic work and his songs. These three ingredients: photos, texts and music, have been brought together to form a whole.

In fifteen short monologues he analyses himself, is angry with the orchestra, uncertain, loves his little daughters, walks, is ill and deceived by Alma. The texts are interwoven with the music as if both were created in the same moment. The photos have been coloured and animated, they phase into the actor, the actor becomes Mahler, Mahler turns into his photo once again. Who’s who in this story?

Gustav Mahler is played phenomenally by the famous Dutch actor Gijs Scholten van Aschat.

Genre Documentary
Production year 2022
Duration 34'
Production Company JFH Productions (c) 2022 Gustav Mahler Stichting Nederland
Director Joost Honselaar & Eveline Nikkels
Main Actor Gijs Scholten van Aschat