Patricia Leonard

Strangely Close Yet Distant

Year: 2003

Duration (in minutes): 0:14:12

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: concertos, small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players


Description: In 1912, Alma Mahler met the young Viennese painter Oskar Kokoschka. They began a passionate love affair that soon evolved into an intensively obsessive relationship. Although she had many suitors, the one man always standing between them was Alma’s late husband and composer, Gustav Mahler. To Oskar, Gustav’s memories lived inside Alma with his music, preventing the kind of emotional intimacy Kokoschka longed for with her. The title comes from Alma’s diary entry of 1922, when she met Kokoschka by chance in Venice. “Strangely close, yet distant” is how she referred to their meeting.

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