In the latest issue of Wunderhorn: The Newsletter of the Gustav Mahler Society of New York, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Fall/Winter 2009), p. 9, there appears a fanciful item about Mahler's brothers. It reads:
"Look at the list of births and deaths in the Bernhard and Marie Mahler family of Kalischt and Iglau.
"Isador, firstborn, died an infant in 1859. Gustav was five when Karl died in 1865; then Rudolf died in 1866, Arnold and Friedrich in 1871, and Alfred in 1873—all dying in their first two years. Ernst the beloved brother died in 1875, having lived about thirteen years. Konrad, the last of the Mahler children, was born in 1879 and died in 1881. Death was assuredly a presence in Gustav's youth.
"Only three Mahler boys lived into maturity, yet death returned with Otto's suicide in 1895. Then there were two brothers. One died in 1911. One went to America and died in 1931. And then there were none. (Boys, that is. The three Mahler girls, Leopoldine, Justine, and Emma, all lived to maturity. Leopoldine, the first girl, died at age 26 in 1889. Emma died in 1933, aged 57; and Justine lived to age 70, dying in 1938.)
"Now consider this: What if all of Bernhard and Marie Mahler's children had survived to maturity? No frequent infant death, no caskets in the home, no funerals. Gustav would not be the oldest child, and he would have had ten brothers! Would his musical talent then have dominated the family? Assuming that he became a composer, would his music have featured funeral marches? Would the absence of death in his growing up have affected his creative imagination? What might have been the effect on Gustav's music of living in close quarters with so many siblings?
"Mahler with ten brothers is a flight of fancy that we probably do not wish to book."
The author is Richard F. Somer. I thank him for his dark speculation.
. & '
Topic: Mahler with ten brothers--a counter-factual reflection (Read 6253 times)