Gustav Mahler arrived in New York in 1907, a refugee from antisemitism and a personal crisis, seeking to find in it a new spiritual home. For a certain period he conducted the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic, and composed his final two symphonies.

Yet the Austrian-Jewish composer’s four years in the city were somber ones. The film reveals their depth through letters he wrote to friends and letters written by his wife, Alma. Throughout the film Mahler’s impressive music is heard, from the symphonies to songs he composed for Alma, and against this background we discover that he lost his position after the conductor Arturo Toscanini arrived in New York, that he struggled with an illness that was consuming his body, and that he endured severe emotional suffering in his relationship with his brilliant and ambitious wife, who was unfaithful to him.

Four years after arriving in New York, Mahler asked to return to his native Vienna. There he died in 1911 and was buried, at his request, beside his daughter who had died in childhood.