page_title: Alma Mahler
section_title: Marriage to Gustav Mahler
hierarchical_section_title: Alma Mahler / Marriage to Gustav Mahler
caption_attribution_description: English: Manon Gropius with her parents Alma Mahler-Werfel and Walter Gropius, 1918 Deutsch: Manon Gropius mit ihren Eltern Alma Mahler-Werfel und Walter Gropius, 1918
context_page_description: Alma Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel was a Viennese-born composer, author, editor and socialite. At fifteen, she was mentored by Max Burckhard. Musically active from her early years, she was the composer of at nearly 50 songs for voice and piano, and works in other genres as well. Only seventeen songs are known to survive.
  In her early years, she fell in love with composer and conductor Alexander von Zemlinsky, but their relationship did not last long. She became the wife of composer Gustav Mahler, who insisted that she give up composing. Eventually she fell into depression from being artistically stifled. While her marriage was struggling, she had an affair with Walter Gropius. Gustav started to encourage Alma's composing and helped prepare some of her compositions for publication, but died soon after this attempted reconciliation in 1911. Alma married Gropius in 1915 and the couple had a daughter together, Manon Gropius. During her marriage to Gropius, Alma had an affair with Franz Werfel. Alma and Werfel were eventually married after Alma separated from Gropius.
  In 1938, after the Anschluss, Werfel and Alma were forced to flee Austria as it was unsafe for Jews.
context_section_description: On 9 March 1902, she married Gustav Mahler, who was 19 years her senior and the director of the Vienna Court Opera. With him she had two daughters, Maria Anna (1902–1907), who died of scarlet fever or diphtheria, and Anna (1904–1988), who later became a sculptor. Gustav was not interested in Alma Mahler's composition, desiring for her to abandon composing. However, it is disputed among scholars whether or not Gustav outright forbade Alma Mahler to compose. Despite this scholarly confusion, she did artistically stifle herself and embraced the role of a loving wife and supporter of Mahler's music.
  In June 1910, after becoming severely depressed in the wake of Maria's death, Alma began an affair with the young architect Walter Gropius (later head of the Bauhaus), whom she met during a rest at a spa. Gustav sought advice from Sigmund Freud in August. The 2010 film Mahler on the Couch suggests that Gustav's consultations with Freud might have focused on his curtailing of Alma's musical career as a major marital obstacle, but the actual content of them is not known.
  Following the emotional crisis in their marriage after Gustav's discovery of Alma's affair with Gropius, Gustav began to take a serious interest in Alma's musical compositions, regretting his earlier dismissive attitude and taking promotional actions. Gustav edited some of her songs (Die stille Stadt, In meines Vaters Garten, Laue Sommernacht, Bei dir ist es traut, Ich wandle unter Blumen). Upon his urging, and under his guidance, Alma prepared five of her songs for publication (they were issued in 1910, by Gustav's own publisher, Universal Edition).
  In February 1911, Gustav fell severely ill with an infection related to a heart defect that had been diagnosed several years earlier. He died on 18 May.
caption: Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler with their daughter Manon (1918)
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