WMV Music Web Log

We are working on the Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen of Gustav Mahler, to be performed at the Czech Embassy on Monday May 24. I programmed the Mahler with some trepidation, fearing that the Czechs might not consider him "Czech" enough. I found this paragraph on the web (I forget the source, sorry):

"Mahler was born in Kalischt, Bohemia, on July 7, 1860. At the time, Bohemia
(later to form a major component of Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech
Republic) was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, then enduring its final crumbling
decades, and the region where Mahler spent his youth was strongly associated
with the Czech independence movement. However, Mahler also was a Jew, and Jews
in the region were associated by ethnic Czechs with Germans. Mahler's famous
quote is: "I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an
Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an
intruder, never welcomed." "


Mahler was a Czech composer, born in Bohemia - one has only to listen to the
opening of the "Lieder" to know that he was Czech. Why is he not claimed as a
Czech composer by the land of his birth? For one thing, whereas half the
composers in Czechoslovakia were Jewish before WWII, only one or two of them survived
the war. In the Czech Republic today, there are very few Jewish
composers, who might be expected to draw inspiration from Mahler. The fact that he
wrote in German and was a friend of Brahms does not distinguish him from Dvorak.
The fact that he lived as an expatriate for most of his life does not
distinguish him from Martinu. Why do the Czechs not claim him? I'm afraid to know the
answer.