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Yesterday \u2013 the publication date for my novel\u00a0The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>\u2013 I had an enthralling video exchange with Morten Solvik of the Mahler Foundation in Vienna. You can see it\u00a0here<\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Some highlights:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3:24 \u2013 \u201cYou can\u2019t understand the story of Mahler in New York without first understanding what went on there before he arrived \u2013 something Mahler himself never understood. And this was noted and resented. . . When Henry Krehbiel called Mahler\u2019s American career a \u2018failure,\u2019 this was a comprehensible verdict.\u201d Mahler\u2019s New York predecessor Anton Seidl \u2013 who makes Krehbiel\u2019s verdict comprehensible \u2013 \u201cwas all the things that Mahler wasn\u2019t\u201d: an American citizen who summered in the Catskills, who befriended the American composer, who assumed a mantle of cultural leadership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 6:18 \u2013 Henry-Louis de La Grange, Mahler\u2019s most prominent, most copious biographer, came to graciously understand Seidl\u2019s significance\u00a0\u00a0— \u201cI took him aside and told him about Seidl. But he could never overcome his antipathy to Henry Krehbiel.\u201d The New York music critics, generally, were far more sagacious than de La Grange allowed. \u201cTheir reviews of Mahler the conductor retain credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n