100 years ago today, Austrian composer Gustav Mahler died, after a tumultuous life and marriage and a rise to success between Vienna and New York. This summer, we’re publishing the bestselling biography Gustav Mahler, by Jens Malte Fischer, translated by Stewart Spencer. Fischer explores Mahler’s early life, his relationship to literature, his achievements as a conductor, his unhappy marriage, and his work with the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic in his later years. He also illustrates why Mahler is a prime example of artistic idealism worn down by Austrian anti-Semitism and American commercialism.

Fischer has written about his first experiences with Mahler’s music; you can more about it on the Yale Books London blog.