Gustav Mahler and Alma Maria Schindler were married in . . . 1902. The bride was twenty-one and a half years old, her groom a few months short of forty-two. Apart from their substantial age difference, it seems to have been the very disparity of their intellectual and social backgrounds that drew them together. Mahler was attracted to Alma by her beauty, her alert mind and emotional intensity. Though aware that he possessed by far the broader outlook, he trusted in Alma’s ability and willingness to learn from him."—from the Introduction

"Once the stiffness of unfamiliarity has been softened by a few months of marriage, Mahler’s style of correspondence with Alma is generally simple, direct, and astonishingly down-to-earth. In a manner akin to that of his musical style, he spikes his language with witticisms and double-entendres, colloquialisms and quotations from librettos and classical works of literature."—from the Preface

This profusely illustrated collection of Gustav Mahler’s letters to his wife Alma is more comprehensive than any previous edition; it contains 350 letters, 188 of them until now unpublished. Since 1995, when the German edition of this book was first published, two events have served to expand its horizons: the publication in 1997 of the complete text of Alma’s early diaries, dating from January 1898 to March 1902, and the publication in 2003 of a catalogue of all Mahler letters acquired from the Moldenhauer Archives. With the aid of this new material, the editors were also able to revise the dates assigned to many of the letters. Commentaries and annotations throughout the book have been corrected and expanded annotations included. The editors’ introduction provides a biographical context for the correspondence that follows.

古斯塔夫·馬勒，奧地利作麯傢，指揮傢。猶太人，齣生於波希米亞。作為作麯傢，一生創作瞭10部交響麯，與理查·施特勞斯、西貝柳斯一道，唱齣瞭19世紀浪漫主義最後的挽歌。他的音樂直接影響瞭勛伯格、貝爾格和韋伯恩，也包括肖斯塔科維奇和布裏頓。作為指揮傢，他的成就在生前就已得到廣泛認可，不但演齣水平優異，還具有創新性。作為曆史上最偉大的歌劇指揮傢之一，對瓦格納和莫紮特歌劇的詮釋尤為突齣。

曹利群，20世紀50年代生人。種過田，做過工，大學畢業後當編輯。主編過《愛樂》雜誌，寫過一些和古典音樂有關的文章。齣版的書主要有：《繆斯的琴弦》、《永遠的珍藏》、《曆史旁的花園》、《五音不全》、《肖邦不住17號》。翻譯有《梅紐因訪談錄》、《歌劇——一種新的聆聽方法》（閤譯）。

莊加遜，2007年畢業於上海交通大學外國文藝理論專業，獲碩士學位。近年來為《愛樂》、《文景》、《現代音響技術》、《中國新聞周刊》等雜誌撰寫和翻譯文章。曾參與編撰《外國傳記鑒賞辭典》（上海辭書齣版社，2009年版）。