MAHLER AND HIS CONVERSION

I decided to write this article after I was approached by one of our members who, like me, was an atheist of Jewish origin, and requested my take on Mahler’s conversion from Judaism to Catholicism. My take would not come from any insider knowledge or some religious specialism and would be no more valid than that of anyone else in our group. However, the idea grew on me and I decided to pick up the gauntlet and express a view but only from the facts that I knew or could deduce. The point at issue was simple. Mahler was born and brought up (so it is believed) as a Jew. The conductorship of the Vienna Opera was a Court appointment and only open to members of the Catholic faith. It was the number one plum position and to obtain it Mahler must needs become a Catholic. He did so in 1897 in Hamburg, two months before being appointed to Vienna, and maintained that decision until his death in 1911. Most commentators describe it as pragmatic. Some might say cynical. Was it genuine or a masquerade, an affectation or a conviction?The question appears to be of more concern to Jews than to Christians who appear to display less qualms about it. With Jewish people there is an element of “How Could He?”, almost a sense of betrayal, or that, in the end, Mahler would return to his true faith. If they believe he was maintaining a sham, then they would need to find the evidence to support that contention. My task has been twofold. First to examine his family way of life and belief during his childhood years as well as the period up to the date he converted. Secondly, to examine what evidence there is of either his harbouring an intention to return or alternatively that he had adopted his new religion whole heartedly. In tackling this I soon realized that the opposing proponents have a different standpoint, based usually on a lack of knowledge, understanding and the convictions held by the others. In the end we will never know exactly what Mahler felt and intended and we are left having to make assumptions. I accept that I am as biased in this as the next man. I write as a confirmed atheist with the knowledge and background that until aged eleven I was brought up in an orthodox Jewish environment in Swansea with World War Two as the background. However, my life outside the back door at home was always one of integration, the only Jewish boy in the street gang (and with whom I had my fair share of fisticuffs) and one of only two Jewish boys at my primary school. Later my family joined the Liberal Synagogue in South London which was more progressive and encouraged free thinking. Eventually I was to fall out of bed with the religious side but remaining conscious of my history. Mahler’s family lived in Iglau from when he was six months old, a German speaking town encircled in a mainly Czech speaking area. His father has been described as a free thinker. To appreciate this one has to realize that there had been an intellectual Jewish enlightenment stemming back to Moses Mendelssohn (grandfather of the composer) in the late eighteenth century. Mahler’s father was originally a travelling salesman who had climbed the bourgeois ladder. What I did not know was how deep did Mahler’s Jewish background and culture go. One assumed he would have gone to synagogue

and been brought up to the major Jewish festivals and ritual, that he would have retained all of this until the decision to convert. However, I am not allowed to assume and I sought to find evidence as to how orthodox his Jewish life might have been. The one authority on Mahler is the study by Henry-Louis Lagrange which runs to four volumes, each of some 800 pages. I am afraid that I was misled by Monsieur. Lagrange in one respect. His first tome states that there were 500 households in Iglau of which only three were Jewish which led me to conclude that that would be insufficient numbers to create a minyan, the necessary quorum of ten adult males to be able to hold a full service and pray together. If that were so, there would not have been as much of the background ritual of Jewish life as one would normally assume to have been present and to have influenced Mahler. Come what may he would have known he was Jewish and aware of hostility to Jews in various quarters. I then recalled that in 1860, the year of Mahler’s birth, a law was passed allowing Jews to purchase properties although they could not register until ten years afterwards. There clearly must be others, live-in in-laws, grandparents, lodgers who could not rent a house, let alone buy and who were in need of a Jewish household for shelter where they would be welcome and able to practise their dietary laws. Mahler’s father seized his opportunity in 1860. Almost thirty years later Mahler’s parents were buried in Iglau’s Jewish cemetery which would indicate a congregation. From researches into the history of the Jewish population of Iglau which went back to the 14th century, I found that it had had a synagogue built in 1862, less than two years after the Mahlers moved there. This was enough to indicate a thriving Jewish population with its synagogue, cemetery and doubtless its rabbi, chazan (cantor), ark and scrolls. How often Mahler attended we cannot know. There are those who attend every week, those who turn up every month and those who go on the High Holy days twice a year just like their Christian counterparts who may only go to church at Christmas and Easter. I fancy that Mahler was likely to have been a regular attender as a boy, taking in and absorbing all that he heard and surrounded him, similar to my own experience except that my synagogue got bombed in the blitz and the Iglau synagogue was razed in 1940 by the Nazi forces. Michael Tilson Thomas, the American conductor, has suggested that the synagogue music found its way into Mahler’s music but I don’t hear it. There is no doubt in my mind that you can find in Mahler’s first, fourth and fifth symphonies stretches which have a distinct Jewish klezmer flavour. I mentioned this when I wrote of his fist symphony. Once when I was about ten I went to the synagogue in Swansea where there was a celebrated visiting artiste, a Jewish variety act singer, Issy Bonn, darling of the Hackney Empire, who gave his rendition to the congregation of “My Yiddisher Mama”. That tune reminds me of the second theme of the second movement from Mahler 5. Klezmer is different though, a low class mixture of traditional Hebrew and eastern European pop culture, especially let rip at weddings. The order of service for the Sabbath was quite different, half of it is given over to the Rabbi muttering away in semitic mode with the congregation separately murmuring their own prayers out of synch with each other. There comes a breaking into song led by the cantor (oh what a voice he has - just like Caruso. I used to wonder how Robinson Crusoe came into it) when the scrolls are taken from

the ark and undressed and the whole thing builds ultimately to the climaxes I used to love, less like Hymns of Praise, more like Grand Opera. I didn’t know anything about the Morriston Orpheus Choir but I am sure they could not touch us.Mahler would have also undoubtedly come under some influence from Catholic culture whilst at school. He attended the local primary and the gymnasium at Iglau, the equivalent of grammar school and reserved from 11 to 15 and 15 to 18 for intelligent eleven plus children. That at Iglau was funded by Jesuits and there can be little doubt that Mahler absorbed something of the religious teaching there, his school report showing that Mahler (Mosaic) [sic] had ten out of ten for religion and his best subject. Clearly, he would have been aware of matters on the Christian side of the coin and familiar with every day religious ritual even though not accepting it for himself.From 15, when he went to the Vienna for four years to study at the Conservatory and then throughout his twenty wayfaring years, religious observance did not appear to play any role in his daily life. It is something he would not have forgotten and, had he really wanted to keep it up, he would have had means to do so. It wasn’t simply a question of his being too busy nor does it seem something from which he felt the need to escape. He was an intellectual of an agnostic disposition but ready to fight his corner, whenever faced with antisemitism or under attack in any other way. Of his seeking to be accepted into the Roman Catholic church in February 1897 one’s first question should really be, so what? What did he actually do? He had set his heart on being first and foremost a composer and his sights on being the top conductor at Vienna. It was his for the asking…. provided he became a Catholic. Today this would be unfair. Trouble is it was part of the job spec and conducting the orchestra on occasion might require religious music in St Stephens Cathedral in Vienna. Apart from that a Jew should no more be disqualified from conducting the Vienna Opera than he should be refused admission to the Southend Golf Club. He was not doing any harm to anyone but himself in conceding to the condition. It’s like putting an x in the box to agree the conditions when booking a concert online. He had practised no religion for over twenty years. It would make no difference to him, or his family. So, let’s be practical, go for it. His comment to an acquaintance when he emerged from St Michaels in Hamburg after his baptism was “I’ve changed my shirt”. So why should we concern ourselves whether his motive was genuine; whether he had betrayed his roots; whether he remained Jewish at heart or became a true Catholic or whether he secretly wished to return to the fold? These are the questions which continue to bother so many people and what I find more interesting is not so much what reasons did Mahler have but why is everyone else so troubled about it? Those of Christian origin regard his conversion to Roman Catholicism as a perfunctory necessity, little more than an inter-faith upgrade. Those of Jewish origin, treat it as an act of opportunism and not being true to himself which they find difficult to go along with. These differences in outlook stem from the differing cultures of the two religions and the conditioning of their respective adherents.Let us look at it from a Christian point of view. Some of my best friends are Christians and in this respect I have also had some input from the Rev Ronald

Lewis, United Reformed Church minister, who happened to be born into a Jewish family, started studies to become a Liberal Jewish rabbi but later switched and joined the Presbyterian, later the United Reformed Church. He happens also to be my brother. One thing is clear. You don’t change your skin, your genes or your history when you change religion. You change, the complete you, incorporating the whole caboodle of who you are. Ron Lewis was advised by his mentors not to mention his Jewish origins if he could avoid it. And being Ron Lewis, and having many of the same genes of obstinacy as his brother, he ignored it. That to my mind could sum up Mahler’s attitude. One important factor also is that Christians go in for proselytising and Jews do not. Different sects of Christianity go out of their way to convert and find the concept natural and understandable. On the other hand, the orthodox Jewish closes ranks and discourages outsiders to seek to convert and will only accept them if they have a sincere intention which does not extend to changing simply because they wish to marry a Jew. Therefore, the Jewish view on conversion can be described as anathema. The motivation behind this is self-preservation. It stems not so much because of any Jewish doctrine to that effect but from that twin aspect of Jewishness, race and the need for their preservation, which is understandable. A number of people have said to me that they do not view Mahler’s conversion as being particularly difficult for anyone who is Jewish because, after all, Jesus was a Jew. I do not go along with that. Yes, Jesus was a Jew, a biblical Jew and not what my grandmother might have called a Yiddisher Jew. Here, we are talking about two thousand years ago. The link between an orthodox practising Jew of to-day and Jesus is about as relevant as the ties between the residents of modern day Norwich with Boudicca and the Icene tribe. Jewish people do have a problem when it comes to conversion, a barrier, one which many well meaning and sympathetic Christians do not appreciate. The problem for Jews when it has come to conversion is in accepting the love of Jesus which is central to Christianity. An outsider may find it difficult to understand but Jews have been even in more modern times subject to prejudice, exclusion and rejection as did Mahler. For many of them the very image of Jesus is not viewed as meek and gentle but has become a symbol instead of past enmity towards them. That it seems to me is why conversion from Judaism to Christianity is not just a religious question but an emotional one which involves overcoming this long entrenched conception. Jews do not always realize this – they don’t go round with a chip on their shoulder - but they have their built in prejudices too.In past times Jews have been vilified and excluded from Society. Nowadays one would like to think that that could be put to bed. Hatreds stem from ignorance and prejudice by one to the other and on this count there has been blame on both sides. This has not changed but moved direction. The target is different. The antagonism towards Muslims today and the reactions to it are not very much different to what Jews suffered in the past. There is still a danger of history repeating itself and it makes me wonder whether religions themselves are to blame.Children are brought up as the property of their parents and inculcated with what their parents believe. All the prejudices become passed on from

generation to generation. Yet any religion is supposedly a belief and religious beliefs may be changed as can political beliefs. Personally I think it insidious to fill children’s heads with stories which leave prejudices for life. As an atheist myself, I can thank God that I have never attempted to tell my sons what they should believe and they have been able to reach where they are now by their own conclusions. However, the idea propounded that we are actually born with a religion is as preposterous as being born with original sin, as if we all must be signed up to one club or another. The question of being born with a religion ought to have formed an operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan and, if I may be so bold and light hearted, I offer the following Gilbertian extract, duly updated and adapted by yours truly:

“Every little boy and gal into this world that’s born anewIs either a little Christian or otherwise a little JewBut this may not be quite correct and may not reflect what’s trueAs he may now be a Muslim and she a new Hindu”

This practice of believing we arrive on earth with a given religion leads us to the worst sin of all, to change from the religion that one was supposedly born into and cross the red line. Where does all this get us so far as Mahler is concerned? My answer is that it was a matter for him and his conscience. I doubt without the juicy offer he would have made the switch even if it were with EDF and not the Catholic Church. What we do not know is whether he already had any pre-existing leanings towards Catholicism before or might he have gone on in order just to convince himself that he was doing the right thing. Mahler was a man of great sensitivity and a deep thinker who had studied Nietzsche. He probably knew deep down his motives were questionable. It is more likely for his self-esteem that he should persuade himself that he really did believe in the tenets of his adoptive religion. I reckon also that there was more elective freedom to switch and change at that time. Two of Mahler’s sisters had lived with him in Vienna, Justine and Emma, who both became members of the Evangelical Church, Hallelujah. Mahler’s brother Alois changed his religion twice. So now it can be seen to have run in the family. There will still be those who remain baffled but there has been no crime committed. Norman Lebrecht has observed that Israel has not named any street after Mahler, not even the smallest cul-de-sac. Recently, I looked at one American website where arguments were ranged on both sides of the divide as to whether Mahler was a true convert or remained a Jew. One Catholic argument was that there were Catholic leanings earlier with his second symphony. Resurrection was of course a Christian concept. Yet religious musical expressions do not necessarily represent the composer’s beliefs. Take the Mass. It is a format in the same way as symphonies are

formats. Vaughan Williams wrote a mass and he was an atheist. As it happens Mahler, who became a Catholic, didn’t write a mass. One ludicrous argument from a Californian rabbinical source was that Mahler had been circumcised and so must have remained Jewish! I don’t suppose for one moment that the baby Mahler had much say about that and, when Mahler did ultimately convert, it was unlikely he would have sought a transplant.I turn now to the period post-conversion to see what evidence there is that Mahler maintained his newly found faith. In 2002 he married Alma Schindler who at first I mistakenly understood to be Jewish but who was not so. She certainly had a varied experience, work rate and taste for Jewish artists. Alma has written that Mahler could not pass by a church without going in to inspect it. Then again, I could say the same of my father who derived great pleasure from visiting country churches on his bicycle. There is little concrete evidence either way that Mahler was practising his new religion or looking to return to the old one. That is until I decided to think about his eighth symphony, the Symphony of a Thousand. My first thoughts on this work led me up the garden path altogether. It is in two parts, the first being a tenth century hymn “Veni Creatur Spiritus” and the second part an excerpt from Goethe’s Faust. But Faust, I thought, relates to a character who had sold his soul to the Devil. Hold on. Was Mahler telling us that in turning to Christendom he had sold his own soul to the Devil? Not so. I read the text and both parts relate to love and redemption. Both strongly refer to the love of God and to the son of God. This work was not some religious format but texts chosen by Mahler with what can only be described as fundamental Christian belief. The work was dedicated to Alma and I doubt that it could contain coded messages but that it makes a statement of Mahler’s strongly held conviction.There is one other document which is even stronger evidence of Mahler’s attachment to the New Testament. It is not contained in any religious work but in his demented scrawlings on the score of his tenth symphony. Over the score there was that note he wrote to Alma:“Oh God. Oh God. Why hast thou forsaken me? You alone know what it means. Farewell my lyre”That note, in his state of mind, just months before his death, referring as it does to Christ’s anguish on the cross, could only be from someone who had learned to believe and accept.In the ultimate, I do not think it matters whether Mahler was a Jew, a Christian or an agnostic or that one must pass moral judgement upon him. What matters is what he set out to achieve, and to produce what he believed to be God’s gift to him, to write great music, and in this lies his greatness The rest is by the way. Let it rest.

A Blackheath ConnectionThere is a distant, very distant, connection with Mahler to Blackheath for which I am obliged to Neil Rhind, who is as expert on matters Mahlerian as he is on histories Blackheathen. In my writing I mentioned Mahler’s sisters becoming Evangelical. Both were married to the brothers Rosé. Arnold Rosé was Jewish, born in Rumania, and concertmeister (leader) of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for 58 years. He also formed the Rosé Quartet. In

addition, he was an acclaimed concerto player who turned down Kreisler for a job. He married Justine the day after Mahler married Alma. They named their daughter Alma, after Alma Mahler. Both Rosé couples, were married in the Evangelical church but I cannot say whether the brothers actually converted or not. Justine died in 1938, the year of the Anschluss. Arnold, still then the orchestra leader, was persuaded he should retire and leave Austria immediately for his safety. His daughter Alma brought him to London where he lived till his death in 1946 aged 83. He continued to play during the war including a recital with Myra Hess at one of her famed National Gallery concerts. His final home was at 19 Liskeard Gardens. Blackheath. There is no blue plaque but maybe we could make Arnold a posthumous member of our Group.Alma did not stay in England but went to Holland although advised not to. When Holland was invaded she got to France and was eventually arrested and taken to Drancy. From there she was transferred to Auschwitz where she ran a women’s orchestra called the Vienna Waltzing Girls. They were all prisoners and played for the prisoners and woe betide any guard who interrupted. She died there, not in the gas chambers, but from typhoid and was one of the rare Auschwitz inmates to be given a proper funeral. Both she and Arnold are buried now with Justine in Vienna.