by Bart de Vries

AGAINST THE ODDS

BY BART DE VRIES Antisemitism thwarted the personal development of both Walter Braunfels (1882–1954) and Gustav Mahler (1860–1911). But while the latter eventually joined the ranks of the greats, the first is still waiting for rediscovery. Born into a Jewish family in Bohemia (in what is now the Czech Republic), Gustav Mahler was unlikely to pursue a career as a composer and conductor. His father sang in a choir, but otherwise his family of distillers had no known connection to music. He developed his skills step by step through musical directorships in Ljubljana, Kassel, Prague, Budapest and Hamburg. But to reach the pinnacle of success, becoming the principal conductor and director of the Vienna Court Opera, he had to pay a high price. Two months before his appointment in April 1897, he converted to Catholicism – yet even a change of religion was barely enough. Both as a composer and conductor, he continued to be met with prejudice and outright racism. A well-known, influential critic infamously said about his compositions: “What I find so hideously repellent about Mahler’s music is its unequivocally Jewish character.” And when he madesome minor revisions (a not uncommon practice among conductors) to Beethoven’s work, he was reproached by another critic saying: “If Mr. Mahler really wants to make corrections let him set about Mendelssohn or Rubinstein – […] – but let him just leave our Beethoven in peace.” And again another critic referred to his style of conducting as ‘mauscheln’, a derogatory term that in this context was meant to ridicule his arm movements (‘violent’) and swaying of the upper body, things that were considered typically Jewish.

As opposed to Mahler, Braunfels came from a musical family. His mother, who was primarily responsible for his upbringing – his father died when he was three years old – was a great-niece of Louis Spohr and played the piano with no other than Franz Liszt. His sister received lessons from Clara Schumann. Some of Braunfels’ most profound learning experiences were the rehearsals and performances of several of Mahler’s symphonies, which he could attend while a student in Munich. Braunfels’ heyday was in the 1920s and early 1930s when legendary conductors like Bruno Walter and Wilhelm Furtwängler performed his music. Although Braunfels’ also converted to Catholicism later in life, he did so from Protestantism. However, being born to a Jewish father was enough for the authorities to dismiss his music in 1933 as ‘entarted’. They would eventually forbid the performance of it and force him to step down from his position of director at the Conservatory of Music in Cologne. His Scottish Fantasy (for viola and orchestra) was composed in 1932/33, just before he had to retreat from public life. The opening theme of the piece comes directly from the famous Scottish folk song Ca’ the Yowes. It returns in disguise in the second movement, and more clearly at the end of the third. In the final movement Braunfels uses the theme in a Rondo with variations. While Mahler’s career showed, against all odds, an upward curve, in many ways Braunfels’ career was nipped in the bud. Although he was reinstated after the Second World War as the director of the Conservatory, his music fell out of fashion. Having witnessed the atrocities of the First World War while being conscripted, and being marginalised during the Nazi era, the events may have been stacked against him too strongly. However, his Scottish Fantasy testifies to his talent, against all odds. Perhaps it is time for a reappraisal of his work.