The Marriage: Joseph Horowitz in conversation with Lillian Dabney and Dave Beck

Classical KING FM and Folio: The Seattle Atheneaum invite you to join Folio Librarian Lillian Dabney, and  host of Classical KING’s late morning show Dave Beck for a conversation with cultural historian Joseph Horowitz, author of the recently published novel The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York.

 Horowitz writes "My first novel tells the story of Gustav and Alma Mahler in New York City (1907-1911). Every Mahler biography known to me is written through European eyes and recapitulates Mahler's own ignorance of the New World — of the teeming musical life of Manhattan and Brooklyn. The Marriage is partly conceived as a corrective. It is in fact the first book-length treatment of Mahler in New York ever written."

...Mahler was a great personality and, when circumstances permitted, a great man. He arrived in America weakened and fatigued. His energy and idealism were aroused by the New World, but fitfully . . . he remained a chronic outsider. Gustav Mahler was not really cut out to be music director of an American orchestra, sensitive to the needs of a cultural community, its scribes, audiences, and benefactors. He had bigger things to do.”

Joseph Horowitz's eleven previous books mainly deal with the history of classical music in the United States. Understanding Toscanini: How He Became an American Culture-God and Helped Create a New Audience for Old Music (1987) was named one of the year's best books by the New York Book Critics Circle. Wagner Nights: An American History (1994) was named best-of-the-year by the Society of American Music. Both Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall (2005) and Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts (2008) made The Economist's year's-best-books list. In tandem with his Dvořák's Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music (2021), Horowitz produced six "Dvořák's Prophecy" films for Naxos. His current "More than Music" radio documentaries for National Public Radio, heard bi-montly via the daily newsmagazine "1A," are an outgrowth of this activity. His forthcoming book, The Propaganda of Freedom: JFK, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and the Cultural Cold Warrior, will deal with the cultural Cold War. The larger topic of all these activities is the role of the arts (today embattled) in American history and society.

Dave Beck hosts Classical KING’s late morning show. Previously, he was an award–winning producer of KUOW Presents. He had been at KUOW since 1985, beginning his career there as classical music host and music director. From 1993 to 2000 he was co–host of Weekday. His national and regional broadcast honors include the Public Radio News Directors Incorporated (PRNDI) Award for Best Interview and the Society of Professional Journalists Northwest Regional Excellence Award.

Lillian Dabney has been involved in every aspect of the book, from fierce reader, to book binder and is an advocate of all things literary.

She has served on the board of the Washington Book Arts Guild and Friends of the Seattle Public Library. She received a Master's degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington and worked at the Seattle Public Library as an on-call reference and readers services librarian.​