Klarinet Archive - Posting 000121.txt from 2005/11

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] The Vienna Philharmonic and Women -- Bad News
Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 14:26:40 -0500

Whatever Mahler's reason for conversion, at the instant of his
conversion he ceased being a Jew and became a Catholic. The idea
that his Jewishness somehow survived that has (and I make no
accusations here) racist elements. It was (it is) the racist
view that Jewishness can never be given up because it is a
disease carried by the genes.

That Mahler's neice died in Auschwitz is tragic but not relevant
here. I point out that had he lived long enough, Mahler would
have died in Auscwitz, too, but as a Catholic as did many priests
of Jewish origin. On Mahler's conversion (which I have to assume
was genuine), he became and should be referred to as a Catholic.
The baptismal process is instantaneous and permanent.

If Mahler had been born a Protestant and then converted to
Catholicism, would anyone think about referring to him as a
Protestant? And the answer is "no" because being a Protestant is
not seen by any intelligent person as having a defective gene.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Wolman [mailto:rainermaria@-----.net]
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 10:01 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: RE: [kl] The Vienna Philharmonic and Women -- Bad News

dnleeson wrote:

>>Not to make too much of a point to it, the reference to Mahler
by
>>Ken Wolman as a Jewish composer is incorrect. He was a
Catholic
>>composer, and a great one, too.
>>
>>Dan Leeson
>>DNLeeson@-----.net

Wikipedia is not Grove, but my employer doesn't subscribe to
music
publications and trials are available only to institutions:

>> Shortly before his appointment to the Opera, Mahler converted
from
>> Judaism to Roman Catholicism,
>> mainly due to his fears of anti-semitism , which
>> was rampant in the city. Mahler became one of a generation of
Jewish
>> intellectuals who had lost their religious identity and taken
root in
>> the Austro-German culture they felt they were bound to be a
part of.
>> As the composer himself said, "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's niece I believe was in Auschwitz with Fania Fenelon.
Parts of the
Titan sound like a Hassidic wedding.

I had an English prof many years ago named Albert Goldman who
wrote music
criticism for The Reporter magazine (I think now defunct, as is
Goldman).
He wrote about Mahler in the light of Wagner's "scholarly" essay,
"The Jews
in Music." Goldman concluded that in Mahler's case,
Wagner was right--Mahler had no single style becaue he was a
mockingbird or
cuckoo who had no musical/cultural identity, and therefore stole
other
national musical identities. Nasty. No, try vile.

Albert Goldman...something wrong here? This was also, BTW, the
guy who did
"biographical" character assassinations of his "friend" Lenny
Bruce and of
John Lennon.

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: dnleeson [mailto:dnleeson@-----.net]
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 11:58 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: RE: [kl] The Vienna Philharmonic and Women -- Bad News

Not to make too much of a point to it, the reference to Mahler by
Ken Wolman as a Jewish composer is incorrect. He was a Catholic
composer, and a great one, too.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

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