Klarinet Archive - Posting 000122.txt from 2005/11

From: "Jim Lytthans" <lytthans@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Mahler
Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 17:12:44 -0500

<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.>

Actually Mahler was from a Jewish family. His father adopted Catholicism to
(1) help his business, and (2) to avoid persecution as a Jew.

From Wikipedia:

Gustav Mahler was born into a Jewish family in Kalischt, Bohemia. His
parents moved to Jihlava, Moravia, Austro-Hungarian Empire where Mahler
spent his childhood, in the first year of his life. Having noticed the boy's
talent at an early age, his parents arranged piano lessons for him when he
was six years old. In 1875, Mahler, then fifteen, was admitted to the Vienna
Conservatoire where he studied piano under Julius Epstein. Three years
later, Mahler attended Vienna University, where Anton Bruckner was
lecturing. While at the university, he worked as a music teacher and made
his first major attempt at composition with Das klagende Lied; the opera,
which he later turned into a cantata, was entered in a competition, in which
he was ultimately unsuccessful.

-------------------
Jim Lytthans
Anaheim, CA

Clarionet. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his
ears. There are two instruments worse than the clarionet - two clarionets.

Ambrose Bierce: Devil's Dictionary 1911

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