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Chapter One Songs of a travelling apprentice (1860-88) Natalie BAUER- LECHNER (1858-1921) Mahler did not readily talk of his childhood, confiding only in two women who loved him. His wife made notes of some of his reminiscences and rewrote them in the third person, sometimes contentiously. His previous confidante, though, preserved his own account more or less verbatim.     Natalie Lechner was born in Vienna on 9 May 1858, daughter of a bookseller and publisher. She met Mahler as a student at the Conservatoire and was his closest woman friend from the early 1890s until he met Alma in 1901. She had been married (1875-85) to a schoolteacher, Alexander Bauer, and earned her living independently as a professional violist, playing in the Soldat-Röger quartet. She longed to marry Mahler and attempted on at least one occasion to seduce him, but he did not find her physically attractive and exercised his passions elsewhere. Natalie shut her eyes somehow to his sexual relationship in Hamburg with the singer Anna von Mildenburg, with whom she was quite friendly.     But his engagement to Alma, twenty-one years her junior, forced Natalie to give up hope of marrying him. She bowed out of his life painfully but with great dignity and died destitute in Vienna on 8 June 1921, just over ten years after Mahler's death. She had been among the first to recognize his greatness, although her ranking of genius was not altogether sound. In her will, dated 10 June 1918, she writes: `What I thank Heaven for most is that my life has been allowed to encounter those two great spirits, Lipiner and Mahler.' In that order.     Extracts of her Mahler recollections first appeared in issues of the magazines Der Merker (April 1913) and Musikblätter des Anbruch (April 1920). After her death, a savagely cut-down version was published by her nephew as a book. Her manuscript, of which she made several copies, had circulated for years among friends in musical Vienna and `various unknown persons had torn up numerous pages'. An expanded version of her books has been published lately in Germany by another relative, but is by no means as comprehensive or as vital as the fullest surviving text, owned by Henry-Louis de La Grange. The extract below is reproduced for the first time. In the times we chatted, G. told me something about his childhood. The first thing he composed on paper at the age of six was a polka, to which he added a funeral march as an introduction. He produced this in response to a promise from his mother that he would receive two crowns -- although a condition was firmly attached that there must not be any blots on the paper. (G., it should be said, was great at making blots!) So he prayed to God before he went to work that he would not cause him to make any splashes, and secure in the thought that God would see to it that he didn't, he merrily dipped his pen in the ink without taking any care. He had a non-spill inkwell to preserve him from the worst disasters. But, oh dear, when he was on the very first notes he made a huge puddle so that the lovely clean paper and all his preparations were ruined from the start. The messy little child had to begin all over again. `My faith in God suffered quite a setback,' concluded G. with a laugh.     `My second attempt was when my father gave me the task of setting a poem to music. Again a few crowns were promised as a reward -- my various sallies into art were always for the sake of sordid gain. I settled upon a curious poem by Lessing that goes something like this: `The Turks have lovely daughters Kept safe by harem guards. A Turk can marry many girls. I'd love to be a Turk. To think of nothing but love, To live for love alone. But Turkish people drink no wine. No, no, I'll not be a Turk!'     `You made a fine choice for a little boy,' I chuckled. `I must say, it suits you -- considering that nowadays you don't drink wine and are such a hermit as far as the ladies are concerned -- you really hit the nail on the head!'     `Heaven knows how I came to pick a thing like that and what got into my head. I suppose I chose it because it was short, though it did seem dreadfully poetic: "To live for love alone!" [ der Liebe nur zu leben !]     `Later on I did become keener on composing of my own accord: a sonata for violin and piano, a nocturne for the cello: all sorts of things for piano, and finally an opera with a libretto that a schoolfriend wrote with me. It was on the basis of this fragment (because I never got round to finishing it) that I had the great misfortune to be accepted by Hellmesberger (that idiot) for the composition class at the Vienna Conservatory, missing out on the harmony and counterpoint classes.     `Before that, when I went to Grünfeld's in Prague as a boy of ten, I amazed my fellow inmates by simultaneously transcribing everything they played to me on the piano, even the most difficult pieces, without a single mistake, just from listening to them. Something that is so hard to do that it astonishes me, even today.'     G. enjoyed telling me about how his musical gifts first came to light when, as a child, his mother and father were taking him to his grandparents who lived just a day trip away. `It seems I should have been happier lying in my cot than being taken for a ride along the highway in the big coach. So I cried so furiously that my father and mother were forced to spend most of the time nursing me in their arms: and when that did not help, to climb out and walk beside the coach, rocking and singing songs to me until in this entertaining fashion we arrived at our destination.     `Apparently I was still a babe in arms when I copied little songs and sang them back. Then, when I must have been about three, I was given an accordion and by working out the notes of the things I had heard I was soon able to play them perfectly.     `One day when I was not yet four a funny thing happened. A military band -- something I delighted in all my childhood -- came marching past our house one morning. I no sooner heard it then I shot out of the living-room. Wearing scarcely more than a chemise -- they hadn't dressed me yet -- I trailed after the soldiers with my little accordion until quite some time later a couple of the ladies from nearby discovered me at the market-place. By that time I was feeling a bit frightened and they said they would only promise to take me home if I played them something the soldiers had been playing, on my accordion. I did so straight away, up on a fruit stall where they set me, to the utter delight of the market women, cooks and other bystanders. At that, amid shouts and laughter they bore me back to my parents, who were already in a great panic over my disappearance.     `There was another occasion somewhat later when I came across a military band on my way home from school. I was so fascinated that I stood there heaven knows how long without being able to tear myself away -- despite an urgent call of nature that soon filled my pants. People began backing away in disgust until I found myself in the middle of a big empty circle.     `My first acquaintance with the piano was made on another visit to my grandparents in Ledec. There was a battered old instrument in the attic which I came across by chance when we were clambering around and exploring the upper regions of the house. This jangling hulk excited my curiosity. I was still so small that I could only reach the keys with my hands held high above my head, but in this uncomfortable position and with my tiny fingers I plonked out all sorts of things I had heard, so recognizably that my parents and grandparents, who could hear down below -- and then discovered that it came from me -- were absolutely astonished. When Grandpa asked me whether I would enjoy having a big toy like that, I said yes with gusto, and the very next day, to my indescribable delight, the monstrosity arrived in Iglau, trundled over on an ox-cart.     `They soon engaged a teacher for me and I know for a fact that, to please my mother who always sat nearby when I was practising, I worked hard at the task. I made such rapid progress that by the age of six I played in a public concert, for which in order for me to operate the pedals, because my short legs would not reach, they had to devise their own special attachment. At this and other early concerts that followed, they tell me there was no way I could be made to bow. Instead I would rush up to the piano, straight as an arrow, and begin to play, and when I had done my bit, despite the applause, I would rush straight off again and out of the hall.     `Very early on I began to give piano lessons. To make my pupil -- about a year younger than myself, a lad of six or seven -- play properly, I would rest my arm on his shoulder while he was playing, with my open hand against his cheek. The moment he hit a false note, he received a box over the ears! I also punished him for such sins by, for instance, making him write out a hundred times: "I must play C sharp instead of C". Of course, with my Draconian methods it was not long before this teaching job came to an end.     `During the instruction I was giving to another boy, I got into such a fuss one day over his awful playing that I burst into tears of anger and ran home weeping to my mother. When she asked in fright what had happened, I stamped my foot and, with the tears pouring out, bawled: "That ass of a boy plays so badly that I won't teach him the piano for another minute, no, no, no!" Nevertheless he remained my pupil for years, until I went to Prague, and the lessons (at five crowns an hour) bore such good fruit that they praised me for his progress in the top grades.'     One more story comes to mind that G. told me about his childhood. He was about eight years old when one day after the evening meal Emma, the seven-year-old daughter of the schoolmaster who lived in the Mahlers' house [on the top floor], sent the maid down with the order to ask G. if he would tell her how to compose.     Willingly and in complete earnest he explained to the maid that Emma should simply sit at the piano and play whatever came into her head. She should identify the main theme and write it down, transpose it a bit, elaborate and vary it until a complete piece had developed. The maid reported all this faithfully, and one or two evenings later she came running back. `I must come upstairs quickly: Emma had composed something but could not write it down.' So G. dashed up to help as fast as he could, asked her to play him what she had worked out and jotted it down on paper (probably something had stuck in her head from one of her piano exercises or somewhere). That was the first and last time Emma composed anything. `But,' said G., `it's by that method which I gave her at the age of eight that most so-called composers proceed all their lives.'     Around the age of three, Mahler was taken to the synagogue by his parents. Suddenly he interrupted the singing of the community with shouts and screams: `Be quiet, be quiet, that's horrible!' And when, from his mother's arms, he succeeded in stopping everything, when the whole congregation was in consternation and had all stopped singing, he demanded -- singing a verse for them -- that they should all sing `Eits a binkel Kasi [Hrasi?]', one of his favourite songs from earliest childhood.     Regarding the childhood photographs of Gustav: this is what G. told me about the small picture showing him as a five- or six-year-old boy holding a piece of music: `The picture-taking session was almost abandoned because I had got the idea that in order to appear on the sheet of cardboard, when I stood in front of the scarifying apparatus I, G., would suddenly be whisked, plonk, into the box through some sort of magic spell uttered by the man behind it. And then I should be stuck fast on the paper. This gave rise to a huge outburst of tears because I didn't want it to happen at any price. In fact it was the first time my father had to take strong measures with me. It was only the next day, when the photographer arranged for himself to be photographed before my eyes and I saw that, despite the image they showed me on the plate, he was still there in one piece even after the fearful procedure -- only then could I be persuaded to pose in front of this photographer-cum-black magician.'     As an influence on his character, G. recalled an episode from his school-days. He was standing at the gate of the Gymnasium where the pupils had to wait for their reports to be handed out. He was tortured by an indescribable impatience to know what his testimonial said about him: and as it seemed to be taking longer and longer before the revelation came, he thought he would go crazy. However, my dear G. pulled himself together and said to his rebellious soul: now just calm down and drive out the devil of impatience that is within you! One day you'll be grown-up and there will be lots of times when you think that something you can hardly bear to wait for will never happen. Just remember this moment and tell yourself: in exactly the same way that this finally came to an end, other highly unpleasant times will be survived.     G. told me that when his mother had a headache, as a small boy of three or four he would hide behind her bed and pray that she would soon recover. Then he would go and ask whether she felt a bit better now. And when she said she was, in order to please him, he would eagerly go straight back to praying.     From earliest childhood, G. associated concrete ideas with all compositions. He would think up for himself and recount long stories to do with them, and from time to time he would recite them with musical accompaniment to his parents and to visiting friends of theirs. He would curtain off the windows to create an air of magic and festivity and was often so moved by his own stories that he could not stop himself weeping profusely. For example, to Beethoven's clarinet trio (variations on `Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu'), he invented the story of the tailor's [ Schneider ] entire life, right up to the grave: trial, tribulation and poverty and finally his burial -- with a parody of a funeral march -- which to him conveyed the meaning: `Now this poor beggar is the same as any king.'     `Mahleriana', manuscripts owned by H. L. de La Grange, Paris. (Continues...) Copyright © 1998 Norman Lebrecht. All rights reserved.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Lebrecht sets the stage for this fascinating volume with an informative and meticulously footnoted introduction. Five of the six chapters that follow present a chronological documentation of Mahler's life, music, and personality as seen through the eyes of his contemporaries. The complex profile that emerges--one in which Mahler is frequently described in surprisingly contrasting and contradictory language--reveals just how dramatic an influence he had upon his contemporaries. Each chapter begins with a "Chronology of Mahler's Life and Work," and is paralleled on the facing page(s) by a "Chronology of Contemporary Events." The documentation that follows is drawn from books, articles, memoirs, interviews, and letters. Lebrecht prefaces each new entry with a statement regarding that particular individual's relationship to Mahler. The sixth chapter is an epilogue; it begins with a brief posthumous chronology (up to the death of Alma Mahler in 1964) and concludes with selected obituaries and other posthumous reflections. As a major contribution to the literature on Mahler, this book is of obvious importance to the academic musician. Because it necessarily deals with the creative process, artistic personalities, and societal attitudes, it should find an enthusiastic audience among general readers as well. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate collections. -B. A. Thompson, Winthrop College

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Norman Lebrecht is the author of nine books on music, including The Maestro Myth and The Companion to Twentieth-Century Music. He lives in London with his family.

(Bowker Author Biography)