Mahler, Wagner and Anti-Semitism

Brian Hailes

Professor Ellen Shanahan

Music 226

May 2016

1) A Brief Overview of Anti-Semitism

2) Richard Wagner

3) Mahlers Early Life

4) Conducting Career

5) Composing Career

6) Criticism and Anti-Semitism

7) Alma Mahler

8) Death and Legacy

Brian Hailes

Professor Ellen Shanahan

Music 226

May 2016

Mahler, Wagner and Anti-Semitism

1) A Brief Overview of Anti-Semitism

Hatred, discrimination and mistreatment of Jews date back to the earliest days of

Christianity when Christians blamed Jews for the death of Jesus Christ, although the term anti-

Semitism didnt come into existence until the late nineteenth century, as a way of giving an air of

academic legitimacy to discrimination against Jews. While Jews and Christians have often lived

peacefully together, there are many examples of anti-Semitism, sometimes extreme, throughout

their joint history. In 1096, at the time of the First Crusade, a break-away group known as the

Peasants Crusade killed hundreds of Jews in the Rhineland, working on the principle that if they

were going to attack non-Christians thousands of miles away in the Holy Land, why not start

with those closer to home. Similar attacks occurred in subsequent crusades. Between 1347 and

1352 thousands of Jews were killed in Germany when they were blamed for the Black Death

epidemic.

The Enlightenment (~1750) saw an intellectual move towards religious tolerance. The

movement included Jewish scholars and philosophers such as Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86),

grandfather of the composer Felix Mendelssohn, who believed that ultimately reason would

overcome persecution and discrimination. In 1789 Emperor Joseph II of Austria implemented

laws that instituted freedom of worship, including Jews, and allowed then to them to own
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property, establish schools and hold professional, political and military office. The undercurrent

of anti-Semitism was however, always present in European society.

2) Richard Wagner

Nowhere is the evidence of anti-Semitism more evident, or more significant in terms of

the arts, than in the views and writing of Richard Wagner (1813-83). Wagner is important for a

number of reasons. Firstly because his views were so extreme, although certainly not out of line

with many others of the time; secondly because he wrote about them in great detail; and thirdly

because he was such an influential figure in the arts.

Among Wagners many published anti-Semitic essays and comments, the most pivotal

was his "Das Judenthum in der Musik (Judaism in Music), first published under a pseudonym

in 1850 and later as an expanded version under his own name in 1869. All of Wagners

comments, about both Jews in general and their music in particular, are stereotypes and opinions

that cannot be substantiated in any objective manner. This is always the double-edged sword of

innuendo. It is never sufficiently precise and objective that it can be validated but at the same

time it is sufficiently malleable that those who choose to believe it can always shift their position

to avoid being pinned down.

Wagner begins by attacking Jews in general:

The Jewin ordinary life strikes us primarily by his outward appearance, which, no

matter to what European nationality we belong, has something disagreeably foreign to that

nationality: instinctively we wish to have nothing in common with a man who looks like that.

Wagner attacks Jews from all directions. He is disparaging of the working class Jew, but

he condemns the money grabbing of those who aspire to the middle class; he disparages the

religion but scorns those who convert to Christianity. Basically the Jews cant win with Wagner.
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His view on music written by Jews was that it was shallow, imitative and lacked depth

and feeling, all because Jews were inferior people who could not comprehend the greatness and

depth of German culture:

The Jew, already characterized by us in this regard, has no true passion, and least of all a

passion that might thrust him into art creation.

What issues from the Jews attempts at making art must, necessarily therefore bear the

attributes of coldness and indifference, even to triviality and absurdity.

None of this can, of course be proven or even substantiated. The critic can simply make

the assertion that this is the case about a particular piece of music.

Although it appears that the immediate target of Wagners criticism was Giacomo

Meyerbeer (1791-1864) a Jewish composer and early supporter whom Wagner (erroneously)

believed had betrayed him, Wagners specific criticisms were aimed at Mendelssohn, the most

celebrated Jewish composer to that time:

Whereas Beethovenstrove with highest longing and wonder-working faculty

Mendelssohn, on the contrary, reduces these achievements to vague, fantastic shadow forms.

Given the mood of the times and the sheer weight and importance of Wagners influence,

it is not surprising that leading Jewish artists, many of whom were colleagues and friends of

Wagner, tended to brush aside the virulence of his attacks. However, with the greatest living

Germanic composer stirring the flames of anti-Semitism in this manner it is little wonder that

others were more than willing to echo these views.

3) Mahlers Early Life

It was into this environment that Gustav Mahler, the oldest of six surviving children, was

born in 1860 in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, which was then part of the Austrian Empire.
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Mahlers family were German speaking Jews. His father was a tavern owner in the nearby town

of Iglau. It was there that Mahler received his early education, as well as absorbing a number of

different musical influences Jewish, Central European folk music, traveling musicians, and

military music from the nearby barracks all of which would manifest themselves in his

compositions. He was taught piano and theory by local teachers, made his first public appearance

at the age of ten and in his early teens began writing his first compositions. As his musical talent

became evident he was accepted into the Vienna Conservatory at age fifteen. Among Mahlers

friends and contemporaries at the conservatory were fellow composers Hugo Wolf and Hans

Rott, who tragically died in his twenties after writing a first symphony that clearly influenced

Mahlers early symphonies. Mahler also attended lectures by Anton Bruckner at Vienna

University and it was during these years that he developed his admiration for the works of

Bruckner and Wagner. It is not clear at this stage whether Mahler was unaware of Wagners anti-

Semitic views or whether he simply chose to ignore them. It does not appear that Mahler ever

met Wagner, or that the older composer was ever aware of the young, up and coming musician.

Despite Wagners views, Mahler was throughout his life an unwavering champion of Wagners

works.

In what may have been one of his earliest experiences in covert anti-Semitism, Mahler

had an early symphonic movement composition rejected by the Conservatory Director, Joseph

Hellmesberger on the grounds of copying errors and he graduated without the coveted award

for outstanding achievement.

4) Conducting Career

After leaving the conservatory in 1878 Mahler taught music in Vienna, continued to

attend lectures at the university and continued to develop his skills in composing. From 1880 to
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1897 he held a number of conducting positions in Central Europe, continually increasing his

stature as an opera conductor as he moved from regional positions in Bad Hall, Laibach

(Ljubljana), Olmutz, and Kassel on to the bigger cities of Prague, Leipzig, Budapest and

Hamburg. In 1897 he reached the pinnacle of European music when he was appointed Director

of the Vienna Opera, also conducting the Vienna Philharmonic from 1898-1901. His conducting

career culminated in seasons with the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic from

1907 until his death in 1911.

5) Composing Career

Mahler composed throughout his adult life, initially in his spare time during his early

teaching career in Vienna, then in his time between conducting engagements. His early

conducting career in regional towns such as Olmutz and Kassel was typically focused on light

operas and operettas in the summer season while later in the major cities, the season was in the

winter and he would spend his summers composing. Mahlers compositional output consists

almost exclusively of song cycles and symphonies and while not numerically large, his

symphonies include some of the most monumental works ever written.

Mahler himself conducted the premieres of his first eight symphonies. In general they

tended to be not well received, leaving their audiences at best confused by the music. It is

interesting that of the six symphonies (nos. 3-8) that Mahler premiered during his tenure in

Vienna, none was premiered in Vienna, or with the Vienna PO, reflecting his much lower stature

as a composer than conductor at that time.

6) Criticism and Anti-Semitism

It is perhaps fortunate for Mahlers career that Wagner died in 1883, when Mahler was

still a relatively unknown twenty two year old provincial conductor. Had he lived to see Mahlers
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rising stature Wagner would almost certainly have criticized and condemned him in the same

way that he attacked Mendelssohn. As it was, there were plenty of other critics who were

prepared to take up Wagners baton, so to speak. Once Mahler began to appear in public as a

conductor and to present his compositions, the typical nineteenth century Jewish stereotypes

began to be applied to his style and performance. His highly animated conducting style was

criticised to as being Jewish in its origins, and following the lead of Wagner, his orchestration

was criticized as being a Jewish attempt to conceal lack of artistic merit with complexity. It is

interesting that Mahlers friend and contemporary, Richard Strauss, whose works were equally

complex, was not subjected to this same criticism.

While Mahler was successfully building his conducting career, there was always a

section of the press that was critical of both his conducting and his artistic temperament. It is

ironic that it was his outstanding interpretation of Wagners operas that gradually won over the

serious music critics and elevated his reputation as a conductor to the highest level.

In the second half of the nineteenth century the climate of anti-Semitism continued to rise

in central Europe. In 1878 Adolf Stoecker founded the anti-Jewish Christian Democratic Party in

Germany and the writings of historian Heinrich Von Treitschke provided intellectual credibility.

It was in 1882 that Wilhelm Marr coined the term anti-Semitism and in 1882 the First Anti-

Jewish congress was held in Dresden.

Negotiations over Mahlers appointment with the Vienna Opera took a number of

months, and whether explicit or otherwise, it is clear that his conversion to Catholicism in

February 1897 was a necessary condition for his appointment two months later. Mahler is better

described as spiritual rather than religious, but clearly this conversion had a deep impact on him:
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I do not hide the truth from you when I say that this action which I took from an instinct

of self-preservation and which I was fully disposed to take cost me a great deal.

He was highly successful in his ten years with the Vienna Opera, but the harsh spotlight

of Vienna attracted even greater anti-Semitism. The right wing newspaper Reichspost questioned

whether Mahler could retain support once he began his Jew-boy antics at the podium and later

the Deutsches Volksblatt wrote, He contributed much to the deplorable Judaization of that

institution.

It has to be acknowledged that as a conductor and artistic director Mahler was a difficult

and demanding taskmaster who no doubt made enemies along the way, but none of this justifies

the virulent hatred and anti-Semitism that was aimed at him during his tenure in Vienna.

7) Alma Mahler

Mahlers marriage to Alma adds a new layer of complexity to our story. Alma Schindler

(1879-1964) was the daughter of Austrian painter Emil Schindler. Tall, beautiful and almost

twenty years his junior, Alma was studying composition when she met Mahler in late 1901. They

were married less than six months later in March 1902 when he was forty-one and she was

twenty-two. Theirs was a complex marriage with periods of happiness interspersed with the

difficulties brought on by the demands of Mahlers fame and commitments, their difference in

age, the death of their five-year-old daughter and Almas affair with the architect, Walter

Gropius. Much has been made of Mahlers initial insistence that Alma give up her composing so

that they could focus on his a view that would be unacceptable one hundred years later.

Alma, amongst many other complexities, seems to have had a love-hate relationship with

Jews. She married three of them: Mahler, Walter Gropius and the writer Franz Werfel, yet late in

life she described Gropius as "the true Aryan type. The only man who was racially suited to me.
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All the others who fell in love with me were little Jews. Like Mahler. We can only speculate on

the added dimension that Almas underlying anti-Semitism brought to the convoluted psyche that

led Mahler to seek the advice of pioneering psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.

8) Death and Legacy

Mahler finally left his position in Vienna in 1907, and, suffering from an increasingly

severe heart condition, he spent the last four years of his life between Europe where he spent his

summers composing and guest conducting, and New York, where he conducted both the

Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic. He died in Vienna in May 1911.

Mahlers music didnt receive a great deal of attention during the first half of the

twentieth century, interest being sustained mostly by a small number of devotees such as his

disciple Bruno Walter and by the Dutch and English conductors Willem Mengelberg and Henry

Wood. And, of course, it was banned by the Nazis. A number of factors in the middle of the

twentieth century finally led to the recognition that his music receives today. Firstly, the

enthusiastic promotion by a newer generation of conductors, led by his fellow Jewish conductor

and composer, Leonard Bernstein and secondly, not to be underestimated, the advent of

electronic media, principally the phonograph and radio, which allowed Mahlers music to be

heard, studied, understood and appreciated by a much wider audience. Today he is regarded as

one of the towering figures of the late romantic era.

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