Mahler Defending Schoenberg

“Mahler was in the auditorium for the first performance of Schoenberg' Schamber Symphony (Op. 9) in 1907. There were rowdy scenes after the performance, with people clapping, hissing and yelling. Mahler himself clapped, but the man next to him hissed for all he was worth. ‘How dare you hiss when I'm clapping?’ Mahler asked him imperiously. ‘I hissed your filthy symphony, too!’ came the answer. ‘You look as though you would!’ countered Mahler, and the two men would have come to blows if the police had not intervened.

“Thirty years later in Vienna I [Otto Klemperer] conducted a full orchestral setting of the work, arranged by Schoenberg him self. It was a great success.”

On Mahler's Interpretative Tradition

“There  is now a ‘Mahlerian’ interpretative tradition, but a regrettable number of conductors employ it quite incorrectly. As Mahler once remarked to me, his retouchings were meant for him alone, and he bore full responsibility for them. Today, The Universal-Edition scores of the four Schumann symphonies are sold to the world at large with his amendments incorporated. 

“The retouching of Beethoven, Schumann and others was an essential feature of Mahler's interpretation of their works. I cannot go all the way with him on this point. He retouched in the spirit of his age. I believe it was unnecessary, and that one can bring out the full content of such music without retouching. I believe, too, that if we heard a Beethoven sonata played by Franz Liszt today we should be shocked by his arbitrary treatment of it. And yet both things, Mahler's retouching and Liszt's interpretations, were entirely necessary—in their day. Mozart's retouching of Handel's Messiah should similarly be construed in the spirit of the age. He added the new-found clarinet and transcribed the harpsichord part for clarinets and bassoon.

“During the rehearsals for his Eighth Symphony, Mahler quarrelled with the leader of the Munich Philharmonic (I think that was the name of the orchestra) because he wanted an absolutely first-class violinist who was familiar with his style. He sent for Arnold Rosé, who naturally took over the leader's place. At that, the rest of the orchestra rose and quitted the platform with one accord, leaving Mahler and Rosé alone. They did not return until Mahler had agreed that their leader should play in all future rehearsals and performances. This happened in 1910, when we still had monarchies and some respect for authority still remained. What would Mahler say today?”

—Page 26-27, Minor Recollections by Otto Klemperer

Affinity Konar's “Mischling”

After being immersed in non-fiction during my years of research for The Mischlinge Exposé, Affinity Konar's novel has been a welcome respite.

“As we'd grown, that word mischling—we heard it more and more, and its use in our presence had inspired Zayde to give us the Classification of Living Things. Never mind this Nuremberg abomination, he'd say. He'd tell us to ignore this talk of mixed breeds, corssed genetics, of quarter-Jews and kindred, these absurd, hateful tests that tried to divide our people down to the last drop of blood and marriage and place of worship. When you hear that word, he'd say, dwell on the variation of all living things. Sustain yourself, in awe of this.”

Heidi Neumark and Hidden Inheritance

Heidi Neumark's description of silence around family trauma resonates for me and makes me happy to be uncovering, sharing, and hopefully, making a difference through this project.

“Most things get silenced in families because of shame, guilt, and fear. People wonder what possible good can come from brining up a painful or shameful past. … Yet so much can be lost in an effort to protect others from censure or embarrassment, and fissures under the surface tend to emerge one way or another. I can't answer for everyone, but I've sen how ongoing silence itself can cause tremendous pain—and how it can be crazy-making. It's possible to cover something up, but we can't unsee, unknow, or unfeel it and remain whole.” —Heidi B. Neumark, Hidden Inheritance

Friendship Forged in Forgiveness - KERA Think Interview

It is interesting to hear in this KERA Think interview that novelist Rachel Kadish was struck, early on in her reading, by Helen Epstein's book, “Children of the Holocaust”, as it is the same book where I first saw that I was not alone in my own feelings of family transmission of trauma. Listen to the interview below: