Plans for Der Mahler's Geburtstag?

[Jot N. Tittle]

How will you mark his 148th?

Listen to what??

Please, won't some Bored Member take up Henry-Louis's Appendix 3 I (pp. [1716]-1717) in Volume IV and make some Marillenknödel and let us know how they turned out?

     . & '

[john haueisen]

I began the birthday anniversary by plowing through another 40 pages of La Grange's v4.  Sorry about the term "plowing" but Henry-Louis' unfathomably comprehensive knowledge leads to his inclusion of so many anecdotes and tertiary references, that it is sometimes a real effort to keep in mind his original point.

I will definitely set aside time to enjoy an M6 or M3, and if I can tear my wife away from her busy summer commitments, perhaps we will work together to try our efforts at Mahler's  Marillenknodel.  Thanks to Jot N. Tittle for the recipe, of course from La Grange's Appendix.  (hope that bodes well!)
--John H

[john haueisen]

Marillenknodel

Shame on those who failed to honor GM's memory today!

Thanks to the information that Jot N. Tittle provided, I successfully prepared Mahler's favorite dessert today.
 
For those who care to know, Marillenknodel is a sort of apricot dumpling.
The first recipe that La Grange presents involves mashing a kilo of potatoes.
Sorry, but non-European that I am, i simply couldn't face (or should that be stomach?) mashed potatoes with my apricots.
I opted for "Variant no. 1 with cream puff pastry instead of potatoes.
Here, I encountered another problem:  I found that I was not all that competent at preparing pastry dough from scratch.  I achieved a very sticky mass that would have been able to stick to the apricots, had I been able to discourage it from sticking to my fingers.  Eventually, I switched to my mother's recipe for sweet rolls, which provided a pastry dough to enrobe the sweet apricots.  Following an eight-minute bath in boiling water, the dumplings are next rolled in melted butter (some will remember Mahler's fondness for butter) and then dusted with cinnamon sugar.

The end result was that they were delightful in spite of my ineptness in the kitchen.  As I savoured the apricot confection, I imagined Mahler enjoying the same or very similar taste, nearly a century ago.

This is also my 100th post, so I've saluted Mahler in my own little way.
--Cheers--   John H   

[John Kim]

I am passing Mahler's birthday by NOT listening to his music, which very efficiently reminds me how essential Mahler has become in my life. I've listened to, instead of Mahler, Vaughan Williams Ninth Symphony , Saint-Saens Third Symphony, Dvorak Violin concerto, and Berg Violin concerto. But I don't know how much longer I can
 go on w/o his music for the rest of the day 

John,

[john haueisen]

Good choices, John, but I agree that they will whet your appetite for a return to Mahler.
--John H

[barry guerrero]

I did absolutely nothing for Mahler's birthday (except to post here), and Mahler is very pleased about that. I know because I asked him. 

[Polarius T]

I spent the day in sauna, back at home. Not immediately Mahlerian, I know, but in retrospect there was something of the spirit of his Toblach häuschen present.


[This by the way is where my avatar spent his evenings recovering from previous nights' pub
crawls and thinking about his Fourth through Seventh. In fact, Mahler may have bathed there,
too, in 1907, now that I think about it.]

[Polarius T]

This is also my 100th post, so I've saluted Mahler in my own little way.

Another special day I missed! Belated congratulations and now I'll have to learn to live without the pleasure of addressing you as "Junior."

I'll make Marillenknodel in your honor as soon as I get the Volume IV home and they will be all potatoes, living as I basically do on the potatoes-and-cabbage belt. I'm really piqued!

PT

[john haueisen]

PT, you might take some potatoes into that sauna to get them steamed before mashing them for use in Marillenknodl dough.

Seriously though, thanks for posting the picture of the sauna.  It looks just like the sort of place Mahler would have enjoyed visiting.  He was so receptive to the self-help health care suggestions of friends, that someone's mere mention of the therapeutic effects of sauna use would probably send him running to the nearest sauna.

JH   

[Polarius T]

In fact, you can have those potatoes either boiled or broiled, in any common sauna heater setup:



In fact I'd think Mahler must have been in sauna with Sibelius, given that by the time he visited the latter in Finland the premises had been there for three years already and in any case the sauna is always the first building to go up (for traditional reasons having to do with physical survival in wintertime and superstition) and the center of all social activities. 

More stuff incl. images of Sibelius' home ("Ainola") can be found for instance at http://www.ainola.fi/eng_arkkitehtuuri_kuvia.php. The place is great (my sister lives next door so I've been there several times), no longer a "hauschen" exactly but more of a burg, wouldn't you say, and (besides those frequent pub crawls) the reason for Sibelius' constant financial woes.

PT

[barry guerrero]

More hauschen!!! - every topic I look under, there are photos of small houses!!!   

[Polarius T]

Plus one that's not so small: il castello di Gesualdo, which gets my vote for the Greatest Composer Häuschen Ever.



That's the one in the middle. Even better than Bluebeard's Castle, wouldn't you say? But poor Maria, she ended up the worse off between her and Judit.

PT

[alpsman]

I have to be composer to have at last a decent house like the aboves.

[Polarius T]

I have to be composer to have at last a decent house like the aboves.

Better calculate your odds carefully: you might end up like the Brazilian composer-multi-instrumentalist Egberto Gismonti who for a substantial period in his life lived with the Amazonian Xingu in something not so dissimilar from this:



Or more likely his residence resembled this:



Then again maybe you wouldn't blink. 

Now, how that all relates to Mahler becomes clear when you read John Haueisen's story of that incident with Bix Beiderbecke...

PT

[john haueisen]

Though I fear we may be getting OT (which in addition to Off-Topic may also be "Over-the-Top.") I think PT may be under the misapprehension that Alma was only interested in Bix Beiderbecke's horn, whereas, the truth be told, Alma was usually more interested in tooting her own horn.

JH