After the war (WWII), Mahler got tired of the buss loads of tourists pulling up to take photos of his various hauschen. So, he decided to
purchase a generic looking suburban home in Daly City (I'll bet that you can't pick his out of the bunch in this photo). At that time, he was teaching music theory; music composition, and orchestration at S.F. State Univ. He bought more ugly paintings from Schoenberg during this period. Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya used to visit him here, when they were still around. It's only 15 minutes to downtown S.F., so he liked to show off the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, Coit Tower - the usual S.F. sites.
This isn't far from where I live, so I make a pilgrimage over there from time to time. There's absolutely nothing that distinguishes his old house from any of the others. You can just pick out any of them, and pretend that that was Mahler's. Great stuff.
It was still tough for Mahler to get his symphonies performed during this period. Monteux had already passed away, and Josef Krips was conducting here. Krips was so conservative that he'd hardly do anything later than Schubert. Mahler was rather frail, so he did very little conducting himself. That's why he wasn't teaching conducting - sticking more to just the paper stuff. He developed an interest in chamber music, as well as jazz. At that time, there were still a few of the old jazz clubs around the Fillmore district. Mahler liked to go there when he could, as they didn't mind his cigar smoke at all (a pipe would have more hip). The "beat" movement was just budding, but it's doubtful that Mahler would have been aware of Lenny Bruce, Jack Kerouac, Lawrancee Ferlinghetti - any of that crowd. They were still just localized around North Beach, and didn't become better known until after Mahler's death. It was an interesting period, but Mahler was quite frail. Alma got around!
Barry
