Forbidden Music (14 page)
Authors: Michael Haas
Guido Adler, a childhood friend of Mahler, succeeded Eduard Hanslick at the University of Vienna. With his essay from 1885
Umfang, Methode und Ziel der Musikwissenschaft
,
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along with the collection of
Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich
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that he edited, Adler became the father of modern, systematic musicology. His pupils included several Schoenberg students such as Anton Webern and Paul Pisk. They also included two other composers who came to represent the Viennese musical traditions that grew from Brahms and Mahler: Hans Gál and the Schoenberg pupil, Egon Wellesz.
The
Neue Freie Presse
offers a fascinating series of essays analysing the nature of anti-Semitism by Theodor Haase during April of 1887.
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Anatole France wrote again on the subject on 3 April 1904.
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Yet the Vienna of 1900 was a city where it was possible for Jews to live and work relatively openly within most circles of society. But Vienna, with the second largest Jewish population of any European city after Warsaw, also had to contend with a deeply held, ubiquitous anti-Semitism. The story that Mahler rejected Humperdinck's pupil Leo Blech as a potential assistant at the opera tells us a good deal. Mahler felt that the institution would not tolerate a second Jew, even a converted one.
In fact it was not only in Vienna, but throughout Europe that anti-Semitism was shaping the social environment, as the Dreyfus Affair in France demonstrated. But in music, Wagner had unleashed a beast that was particularly mendacious. Vienna, with music as its cultural centre of gravity and its large Jewish population, was vulnerable. The writer Rudolf Louis published
Contemporary German Music
in 1909. It was an enormous success as it was the first work to deal with Austro-German composers after Wagner. After informing his readers that he had no time for anti-Semitism, he laid into Mahler with particular venom: ‘What I find so fundamentally repellent about Mahler's music is its axiomatic Jewish nature. If Mahler's music spoke Jewish, I perhaps wouldn't understand it, but what is disgusting is that it speaks German with the Jewish accent – the all too Jewish accent that comes to us from the East.‘
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It is worth reading an extract from Julius Korngold's review of the second edition of Louis's book, printed in 1914. Korngold is outraged that the reprint fails to deal with Mahler's Eighth Symphony, premiered in Munich in 1910, but finds the omission even more disturbing given the number of institutions that had sprung up throughout Germany and Austria with the resources to mount performances of such ‘maximalist’ works.
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Korngold's feuilleton dealing with Louis's book starts with a reference to Franz Schreker, founding director and conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Chorus, who followed up his highly successful premiere of Schoenberg's
Gurrelieder
in 1913 with a performance of Mahler's Eighth. Much of Korngold's irritation concerns how little Louis has to say about Mahler in general – and what he does write is objectionable:
It seems quite remarkable that in a book that purports to pass judgement on current German music, even after the death of Mahler and the success throughout the German nation of his Eighth Symphony, he omits it with the belief that ‘the music of Mahler is German music with an accent, the oriental cadence and above all, the gesture of the eastern, indeed, the extreme eastern European Jew […] so that his music makes the same effect as a clown from the [Jewish cabaret ensemble] Budapest ‘Orpheum’ reciting Schiller's poetry. […] Mahler has no idea how grotesque he appears wearing the mask of the German Master, which highlights the inner contradictions that make his music fundamentally dishonest.’ And so he goes on and on. Mr Rudolf Louis, author of
German Music of Today
, hails from Munich, that citadel of the arts and the city in which the questionably German premiere of Mahler's Eighth Symphony took place. Its unparalleled success reflected if anything a huge demonstration of Mahler-admiration, a true apotheosis in view of the premature death of the artist. According to Mr Louis, however, ‘whoever has a positive opinion about Mahler has forfeited his credibility of being taken seriously in an appraisal of western music, culture and the occidental races, and blind to the unbridgeable abyss that exists between them and Mahler's music’. Mengelberg [and others] should take note!
Both [the public] composer and private individual Karl Goldmark must be informed by Mr Louis that ‘artistically and culturally he lacks all instincts for German culture which must remain strange and alien, as it is to any foreigner who lives his entire life in Germany’. So, there you are: both Goldmark and Rubinstein are through their provenance strangers to German culture. Mendelssohn's spiritual compositions were already dismissed in the first edition of his book as ‘decidedly slick and inwardly shallow’. He's had a slight reprieve in the newer edition as now he's only labelled ‘slick and inwardly mushy’. As such, one is inclined to suggest that Mr Louis is somewhat outwardly slick himself. I was further amused to note that in the new edition, the dismissive remark has been removed that made reference to Richard Strauss being born in the year that Meyerbeer died. In compensation, he manages a sleight-of-hand by hardly dealing with Arnold Schoenberg at all – remarkable for a composer who, regardless of what one thinks of him, obsessively occupies the entire musical world in furious discussion and debate. He's quite content to reject his sextet
Verklärte Nacht
as trivial and makes the point regarding his later works that ‘one is either dealing with a madman or a criminal’. It can be seen as a blessing that such musical tendencies (
pace
Wagner) are only rarely expressed these days in Germany and enjoy limited resonance – indeed, are usually countered. Mr Louis's book doesn't really gain much even with a second printing. There are many omissions. Its pretentiously styled subjectivity, hasty conclusions and cranky dismissals only appear all the more lurid. Let's simply agree to put this new edition – not really improved – quietly to one side.
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Mahler and Korngold
Julius Korngold and Mahler were on friendly terms, but not necessarily close friends. A fair representation of the relationship is offered by Julius's son Erich in a letter to Arnold Rosé written on 3 January 1918: ‘That the friendship between Director Mahler and father was true and based on mutual respect and understanding is something I have known since childhood.‘
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Apart from the odd individual letter in various European archives, their correspondence remains a mystery. The International Gustav Mahler Society in Vienna has a single photocopy of a letter from Mahler to Korngold that appears to indicate that it was one of 113.
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Julius Korngold's memoirs quote copiously from letters he must have had in front of him at the time, but what happened to these after the ransacking of Korngold's home by the Nazis in 1938 remains unknown. Not only is this valuable correspondence missing, but also items from the musical estate of Eduard Hanslick which were
entrusted to Korngold. Mahler's regard for Julius's son Erich is well known, as is his recommendation that he be taken away from Robert Fuchs, his own teacher at the academy, and be taught instead by Alexander Zemlinsky.
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Julius was suspicious of this recommendation initially because of Zemlinsky's closeness to Schoenberg. But what Korngold's writings (such as his review of Louis) make clear is that though he disagreed with Schoenberg's ideas, he held him in high esteem, influenced, no doubt, by Schoenberg's closeness to Mahler (to whom Schoenberg dedicated his
Harmonielehre
). Considering Edward Dent's description of Julius quoted earlier, it is ironic that both Korngold and Schoenberg became close in Californian exile. Schoenberg's letter of condolence to Erich following Julius's death gives us a hint of the power of Mahler to bring together what had previously seemed irreconcilable.
Julius Korngold's understanding of Mahler's music is unique. Their relationship was professional rather than personal, but it was a genuine friendship with a collegial closeness that was useful to both. Mahler knew when to feed Julius information for his own ends and Julius was more than happy to comply. Mahler leaked his intention of leaving the Vienna Opera, an astute move that resulted in a three-page blast against Mahler's detractors in the paper on 4 June 1907.
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Later, Mahler passed on his opinion of his successor Felix Weingartner as ‘at best only a dim-witted conservatory student’, a view he knew Korngold would use. He duly did, and ultimately had Weingartner driven from the post to which he only returned once Korngold was retired.
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In his memoirs, Julius sees Weingartner's support of his son Erich as nothing more than the machinations of a clever opportunist currying favour with an influential father. Erich's dilemma was palpable. As an attempt to calm the situation, the fifteen-year-old prodigy dedicated his
Sinfonietta
Op. 5 to Weingartner, who conducted its premiere in 1914. Mahler's dismissive remarks about Weingartner amounted to a well-placed cuckoo's egg, and his high regard for Bruno Walter (who lived on the next floor below Korngold in Vienna's Theobaldgasse) guaranteed that he remained Julius's musician of choice. When Richard Strauss, as director of the Opera after the First World War, had gone so far as to engage Erich as a conductor to gain relief for himself and Franz Schalk from the huge burden of nightly performances, Julius saw only plots and intrigues. His steadfast loyalty to Mahler remained, despite the fact that he had been dead for years.
De facto
, Julius found no subsequent opera director worthy of comparison, and if they showed a genuine interest in his son's works, he was convinced it was only a ruse.
Richard Strauss, who was ordinarily not given to bouts of anti-Semitism, was sufficiently piqued by Julius Korngold's unremitting attacks to call in Erich for a dressing down, accusing Julius of wishing to remove him so that a ‘fellow Israelite’, meaning Bruno Walter, could take over. The popular view, as expressed in an article by the piano professor Richard Robert in the
Wiener Sonn- und Montags Zeitung
, was that Julius was giving good reviews to those who promoted Erich's work and poor reviews to those who did not.
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To outsiders, it was starting to look suspiciously like a cabal. From Erich's perspective, his father's loyalty to Mahler meant that some of the finest performers refused to take up his works for fear of attacks in the
Neue Freie Presse
. This impossible situation prevailed until he trumped Julius by changing direction and began updating and arranging popular operettas by Johann Strauss, Leo Fall and Offenbach, a move that gave him greater financial independence as well as an ersatz father-figure in the stage director and impresario Max Reinhardt.
Julius Korngold's passion for Mahler was a dilemma for his son. Far from taking Mahler as his model, Erich preferred Puccini and Richard Strauss. Recordings of Julius and Erich speaking are revealing. Julius speaks the immaculately articulated German of Vienna's leading opinion makers: he had honed a style of delivery that was originally meant to be heard in Vienna's law-courts (and his brother, Eduard Kornau, was a well-known actor). By contrast, Erich spoke with a Viennese cadence much coloured by an accent of Jewish Czech-German; it lacked any hint of pretension or self-importance.
Julius wrote extensively about each of Mahler's symphonies (it was he who nick-named the Sixth Symphony the ‘Hammerschlag‘
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), and what he has to say about each is revealing. We can assume from reading Julius's memoirs that they reflect conversations with Mahler. Surprisingly, they are not always uncritical. But his article on Mahler's Third Symphony published in the
Neue Freie Presse
on 17 December 1904 gives us one of the most deeply sympathetic treatments of the man and his music. It reveals not only Korngold's innate understanding of the music but also his personal closeness with the composer. It opens by describing a painting at an exhibition at Vienna's Secessionist Gallery: ‘A piano with its lid raised shows us waves rolling evenly into the background. A horrifying sea monster with its front paws extended threateningly rises out of them: it is half sphinx and half water-snake. Above the painting hangs its title
The Symphony
. One can but smile at the thought of the sympathetic visitor adding
The Mahler Symphony
as a welcome clarification.’
Korngold also considers the Strauss–Mahler duopoly in Austria and Germany at the turn of the century. Strauss was born in 1864 and was thus a
few years younger than Mahler. At the time, the two were viewed as the musical Janus faces of the age, and during Mahler's lifetime they enjoyed a kind of friendly rivalry far more pronounced than generally perceived today. What adds piquancy to our reading of Korngold's comparison is that the full extent of Strauss's unblushing opportunism would not have been known to him at the time. Korngold would have been unaware of Strauss's playing on Cosima Wagner's anti-Semitism to keep Mahler out of Bayreuth. With Mahler long dead – and blacklisted from 1933 – Strauss was able to reign more or less supreme in Nazi Germany as their grand old man of music. With hindsight, Korngold's article looks far more balanced than it might have been had it been written thirty years later:
Why does Mahler have it more difficult than Strauss? One places the two composers often enough side by side as the apex of modern musical genius. Strauss, however, has until now not only been modern, but also modish. Isn't Mahler also a brilliant technician, virtuoso orchestrator, in possession of a gloriously deep musical spirit? Of course he is; but he is all of these things in a very different way from Strauss. One could say that Mahler is both more conservative, and more advanced than Strauss. Strauss on the other hand is the more potent ‘new German’ musician. He strides through paths that were trodden fifty years earlier by Wagner and Liszt. The symphonic poem, which takes its very existence with the introduction of extra-musical content, was called into being and placed next to the symphony. Mahler has not broken completely with the formal conventions of symphonic architecture. He simply believes that new art, through its combination of widely varying means of expression, must heighten the subjective musical response [of the listener]. To this is added minutely detailed realism within the framework of the multi-movement symphony. In the middle of structures that the great masters have [already] made familiar, we hear the most daringly modern musical-poetic vocabulary and it is this that primarily alienates – indeed, that
needs
to alienate. This battle between old and new appears to be fought on sacred ground.
We must inevitably turn to two other composers who are central in helping us understand Mahler: Berlioz and Bruckner. Their symphonic styles also wrestle in a similar way with the infiltration of poetic ideals. Mahler studied with Bruckner, and thus one hears not only the foundation of solemn religiosity which intensifies into insistent speculation, but also a child-like naivety in certain passages – all of this is present in addition to quite obvious compositional similarities. Nevertheless, Mahler's true progenitor is Berlioz, with whom his similarities simply mount up. As with Berlioz,
we find with Mahler the tendencies to resort to representational means; the casual adding to the number of symphonic movements; the consolidation of vocal and instrumental elements; the far-flung sound fantasies; the mixture of the bizarre with the exalted and the primitive: ‘the sulphuric bolts of irony’ as Heine called them, all interspersed with voyages that bound between heaven and hell. Mahler belongs to the tribe of Berlioz, just as Strauss belongs to the tribe of Liszt. And the harder one looks, the higher one sees the walls growing between these two musical dynasties. Mahler looks for broad subjects that he melodically varies and spins out; Strauss works with motifs and minuscule motif particles that he combines in complex polyphonic escapades. Diatonic thinking remains at Mahler's core, while with Strauss it's chromatic. If Strauss sounds cacophonic by cleverness and contrariness, Mahler sounds cacophonic by conviction. And while Strauss remains firmly committed to ‘the artistic'; Mahler's need is for naivety, naturalness, in fact nature itself and the folkloric. The preference of this composer for the poetry of the folksong has been a feature of his music for far too long for it to be thought a mere affectation.
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