From Mahler by Jonathan Carr:
[Mahler's attitude to Judaism was at least as ambiguous (...as his conversion/baptism/commitment to Christianity...) At almost no stage did he show any special interest in Jewish matters, let alone back Jewish causes...in general, he did not treat Jewish musicians with special favour. Rather the contrary. In the pre-Walter era he turned down the idea that he should engage Leo Blech, a converted Jew, as a conductor because 'for the anti-Semites, I still count as a Jew despite my baptism, and more than one Jew is more than the Vienna Court Opera can bear.']
[...During a visit in 1903 to Lemburg (Lvov, now in the Ukraine), he wrote to Alma, 'Life here has an unusual look. Oddest of all are the Jews who run around here the way dogs do elsewhere. It is extremely entertaining to watch them! My God, am I supposed to be related to them?']
In his Third Symphony, Mahler introduces a voice, singing a setting of Nietzsche's Midnight Song from Also Sprach Zarathustra.
Although those who have actually looked into Nietzsche know that he was not anti-Semitic, still, he was used by the Nazis to push their agenda of a 'master-race.'
Plus, Nietzsche disparaged the 'slave mentality' of playing the victim, and saw the master race mentality as having escaped this inferior psychology;
...and Mahler, in his relentless desire to build himself up, obviously identified with Nietzsche's observation, adopting it as a rejection of his own 'victimized Jewish' descent, and hos own beginnings in lower-class poverty.
What this all seems to point to in Mahler's case is a monstrously self-directed ego, and a relentless desire to succeed and assimilate into the harshly judgmental, biased, racist Viennese society, and anyone else who stands in the way be damned.
In this regard, Gustav Mahler was simply a product of the times, reflecting his own self-hatred, and desperately trying to succeed and distance himself from his own heritage, by developing a monstrously relentless persona/ego. Perhaps it is this very dichotomy between 'ego' and 'receptive artist' that created such an amazing body of work, and desire to create.
Although I do believe that there was some 'cross-contamination' between his persona and his creative self, if you will pardon the pun.
That's why I criticize his forlorn use of an 'everyman's God' in the Eighth Symphony, aligning himself with a cosmopolitan view of religion, along with Beethoven. In a gigantic, yet overblown and awkward way, he was trying to establish his place in Western classical music history, tossing away and rejecting his own Jewish heritage and connections in the process.
His pittance for Judaism was the incongruous use of street-ditties in the First Symphony, and in a few other instances. How generous! (sarcasm)
Although Mahler was a good father, etc, I see a relentless egotism in him which I find disturbing. Yes, Mahler was human, all too human.
[Mahler's attitude to Judaism was at least as ambiguous (...as his conversion/baptism/commitment to Christianity...) At almost no stage did he show any special interest in Jewish matters, let alone back Jewish causes...in general, he did not treat Jewish musicians with special favour. Rather the contrary. In the pre-Walter era he turned down the idea that he should engage Leo Blech, a converted Jew, as a conductor because 'for the anti-Semites, I still count as a Jew despite my baptism, and more than one Jew is more than the Vienna Court Opera can bear.']
[...During a visit in 1903 to Lemburg (Lvov, now in the Ukraine), he wrote to Alma, 'Life here has an unusual look. Oddest of all are the Jews who run around here the way dogs do elsewhere. It is extremely entertaining to watch them! My God, am I supposed to be related to them?']
In his Third Symphony, Mahler introduces a voice, singing a setting of Nietzsche's Midnight Song from Also Sprach Zarathustra.
Although those who have actually looked into Nietzsche know that he was not anti-Semitic, still, he was used by the Nazis to push their agenda of a 'master-race.'
Plus, Nietzsche disparaged the 'slave mentality' of playing the victim, and saw the master race mentality as having escaped this inferior psychology;
...and Mahler, in his relentless desire to build himself up, obviously identified with Nietzsche's observation, adopting it as a rejection of his own 'victimized Jewish' descent, and hos own beginnings in lower-class poverty.
What this all seems to point to in Mahler's case is a monstrously self-directed ego, and a relentless desire to succeed and assimilate into the harshly judgmental, biased, racist Viennese society, and anyone else who stands in the way be damned.
In this regard, Gustav Mahler was simply a product of the times, reflecting his own self-hatred, and desperately trying to succeed and distance himself from his own heritage, by developing a monstrously relentless persona/ego. Perhaps it is this very dichotomy between 'ego' and 'receptive artist' that created such an amazing body of work, and desire to create.
Although I do believe that there was some 'cross-contamination' between his persona and his creative self, if you will pardon the pun.
That's why I criticize his forlorn use of an 'everyman's God' in the Eighth Symphony, aligning himself with a cosmopolitan view of religion, along with Beethoven. In a gigantic, yet overblown and awkward way, he was trying to establish his place in Western classical music history, tossing away and rejecting his own Jewish heritage and connections in the process.
His pittance for Judaism was the incongruous use of street-ditties in the First Symphony, and in a few other instances. How generous! (sarcasm)
Although Mahler was a good father, etc, I see a relentless egotism in him which I find disturbing. Yes, Mahler was human, all too human.