The Violin Concerto was dedicated " to the memory of an Angel ", Manon Gropius, the deceased daughter of architect Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler.

Gropius married Alma Mahler ( 1879 – 1964 ), widow of Gustav Mahler.

** Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel, Austrian wife of Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius, and Franz Werfel ( b. 1879 )

* Anna Mahler, sculptress and daughter of Gustav Mahler and Alma Schindler

He worked steadily on the score until 1935, when the death of Manon Gropius, the daughter of Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler, prompted him to break off work to write his Violin Concerto.

Mahler did not live to perform his Das Lied von der Erde or Symphony No. 9, but his widow, Alma Mahler, asked Walter to premiere both.

Manon Gropius, Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler ( 1918 )

The event that spurred him into writing was the death by polio of 18-year-old Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler ( once Gustav Mahler's wife ) and Walter Gropius.

According to Mahler's widow, Alma, Mahler took inspiration for this movement from the 1872 painting by Swiss artist Arnold Bocklin entitled: Self-Portrait with Death playing the Fiddle.

( The principal trumpet in the orchestra for the work's première even confronted Mahler, saying " I'd just like to know what's beautiful about blowing away at a trumpet stopped up to high C-sharp " Mahler had no answer, but later pointed out to Alma that the man did not understand the agony of his own existence ).

# REDIRECT Alma Mahler

# REDIRECT Alma Mahler

Alma Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel ( born Alma Maria Schindler ; 31 August 1879 – 11 December 1964 ) was a Viennese-born socialite well known in her youth for her beauty and vivacity.

Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler with their daughter Manon Gropius | Manon ( 1918 )

The house from Franz Werfel and Alma Mahler in Sanary-sur-Mer

Alma Mahler Werfel died 11 December 1964 in New York City.

Mohammed Fairouz set the words of Alma Mahler in his song cycle Jeder Mensch.

It was premiered in a coupling with songs of Alma Mahler by mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey in 2011.

Martin Chervin wrote a one-woman play about her first marriage called Myself, Alma Mahler.

This last missing element in his life fell into place later in 1901 when he met Alma Schindler.

The tragic, even nihilistic ending of No. 6 has been seen as unexpected, given that the symphony was composed at what was apparently an exceptionally happy time in Mahler's life: he had married Alma Schindler in 1902, and during the course of the work's composition his second daughter was born.

Alma Schindler was born in Vienna, Austria ( then Austria-Hungary ), to the prominent landscape painter Emil Jakob Schindler and his wife Anna von Bergen, in 1879.

da: Alma Maria Schindler

Labor taught many notable musical personalities including Alma Schindler ( who married Gustav Mahler and others ), Paul Wittgenstein and Arnold Schoenberg.

Alma Schindler studied with Labor for 6 years, beginning when she was 14, and her diaries contain numerous references to her esteemed teacher.

* Alma Schindler ( 1879-1964 ), later known as Alma Mahler-Werfel, composer, successively married to Gustav Mahler ( Alma Mahler ), Walter Gropius, and Franz Werfel