[wozzeck]

Sokay intolerant- most people don't know that. He was also pretty torn up over his religion too. Mahler was born a Jew but converted to Christianity because he thought his music would be more widely accepted. You really start to hear this in #5. The trumpet solos (after the initial funeral march) are where you can really hear this. Mahler walked around with the voices in his sick head going, "Chistian! No Jew! No Christian! Dammit I'm Jewish! Oy Vey I'm A Christian! No, A Jew! Or.....A Christian! No, Jewish!" (You get the point) This was all on top of the fact that all Mahler really wanted in life was to be Richard Wagner......Is that too much to ask for a composer?

[BluesDuke]

all Mahler really wanted in life was to be Richard Wagner......Is that too much to ask for a composer?

Yes.

[Intolerant in NJ]

This was all on top of the fact that all Mahler really wanted in life was to be Richard Wagner......poor mixed up guy...there was a good biography on him a year or so ago, maybe on PBS, which explained his conversion as a result of his ambition to become director of (I think) the Vienna Opera, which would not hire a Jew to the post...they pretty much played down his apparent emotional/mental problems except for his morbid preoccupation with his children's mortality...he seems one of the more vivid examples of the composer's music reflecting his life....