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Gustav Mahler, born July 7, 1860; died May 18, 1911.
Yesterday, the phenomenal composer Gustav Mahler would have celebrated his 145th birthday. Unfortunately, he was felled
by infectious endocarditis 94 years ago, and has since been decomposing ruhevoll, poco adagio in the Grinzinger cemetery outside Vienna, Austria. His premature death was a great loss for humanity, especially for his many devoted admirers — myself included.
I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Mahler live in Slovenia on two occasions: The first was the 300th anniversary concert of the Slovenian Philharmonic
in 2002, in which they walloped my soul with a stellar performance of
his 8th symphony. The other occasion was an equally glorious
performance of the
4th Symphony, by the greatly talented (but poorly funded) Maribor Philharmonic. The fourth remains a personal favorite of mine; the third movement alone (sample here) is so celestial that NASA should be shooting probes into it to see how it works.
The first symphony I heard by Mahler was, logically enough, the First Symphony.
I didn’t enjoy it at all; like the audience at its premiere in Budapest
in 1889, I didn’t know what the hell was going on. According to some
accounts, the crowd in Budapest seemed to be doing fine until the
tragi-comic todtenmarsch (funeral march) towards the end. Even if you’ve never even heard of Mahler, you’d probably recognize it. If you listen here, you’ll notice it’s a version of the popular ditty Frère Jacques. (Slovenes will recognize it as Mojster Jaka.)
Mahler goes all over the place with it: sentimental, trivial, bizarre,
grotesque. Sigmund Freud, who sat down for some friendly psychoanalysis
with Mahler in 1910, concluded that the reason Mahler always spoiled
noble moments with vulgar melodies was that:
"Mahler’s father
treated his wife very badly, and when Mahler was still a small boy an
especially embarrassing scene had taken place between them. It became
unbearable for the little one, and he ran away from home. But just at
that moment the well-known Viennese song Ach du lieber Augustin
rang out from a hurdy-gurdy. Mahler thought that from this moment on,
deep tragedy and superficial entertainment were tied together
indissolubly in his soul and that one mood was inevitably tied to the
other."
But
I don’t want to focus too much on Mahler and his oedipal problems. I’m
actually bringing him up because of a little-known fact: Gustav Mahler
lived and worked in Ljubljana (as a conductor) from 1881 to 1882. And
Slovenia has almost nothing to show for it. A phonebook search reveals
that there is not a single Mahler Street in the entire country. Take a look at this:
| Street Name | Honoring.. | # of listed addresses |
| Kardeljeva cesta | Edvard Kardelj, communist ideologue and architect of the Yugoslav counterintelligence service. | 863 |
| Titova cesta | Josip Broz Tito, president-for-life of socialist Yugoslavia. | 694 |
| Wolfova ulica | Hugo Wolf(?), Austrian composer born in present-day Slovenia. | 125 |
| Tartinijeva ulica | Giuseppe Tartini, Italian composer born in present-day Slovenia. | 32 |
| Mahlerjeva ulica | Gustav Mahler, arguably the greatest composer of his generation, if not in the entire universe. | 0 |
This
graph is a bit problematic in that it gives you the number of
addresses, not the number of streets. For example, I believe there is
only one Wolfova ulica, and it’s in Ljubljana. Tartini street exists in
Izola and in Šentjur(??). Mahler, though, is nowhere. Not even one of those little
streets that no one uses. It’s high-caliber blasphemy.
I accept the fact that he wasn’t here for a long time, and that he was an Austrian, but even the town of Olomouc (where he went after Ljubljana) was good enough to give him a Mahlerova Ulice. (Not to mention a Cafe Mahler.)
Maybe it’s time to start a Mahler Society in Slovenia and get down to business. Who’s with me?
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I knew that Mahler was a conductor for a year in Ljubljana back
then, but I had no idea that no streets bear his name. That really
should be mended.I think I was in Olomouc once and saw the Mahlerova ulice. Or something. Somehow it seems familiar.
I also wasn’t aware of that fact. It is weird, isn’t it, to have so many streets honouring important people from history and even more being named after all sorts of jerks, but when it comes to Mahler, nobody does anything. It’s like we’re too small and small-minded to accept someone that was really a great man – as he just wouldn’t fit in.Beside that I also have a feeling that we never really accepted people that made success abroad. Irena Grafenauer is a well known example – abroad she’s a star, here she is just a good flautist.Nevertheless I think there is a statue of Mahler somewhere in Ljubljana, I can’t remember if it is at the house he lived in or is it at the train station (but that is probably Joyce, who travelled through here to Trst, isn’t it?).I also like Mahler’s music very much. I don’t really know him that well as I’d like to, but my favourite piece is the Resurrection symphony, especially the last part.
There are still numerous examples of how unfair certain street names
are. For example, there is Vidovdanska street in the center of
Ljubljana. It seems like only few people know that the day it
represents (June 28, day of St. Vitus) is all but something a proud
nation would keep on any street name. It may be a Serbian holiday, but
nothing good ever happened on that day for Slovenia and Slovenians. To
give just two examples: It was the day when the centralist constitution
of the first Yugoslavia was signed, taking away all that few rights
that remained for most nations in Yugoslavia. Also, on that day, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife were
assassinated in Sarajevo, which lead to World War I, after which the
Slovenians and their territories were divided among four different
countries.
The street was once called Radetzky street. Perhaps it should get back its old name…
www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop.r/r039792.htmAnd before that, it was Kravja Dolina (Cow’s Valley). Sounds like fun too. :)))
If I remember correctly Wolfova is not named after Hugo, the composer, but after Anton Alojzij Wolf, bishop of Ljubljana (1824-1859).(And "Olomauc" is spelled Olomouc).
Maybe they could rename it to Mahlerjeva Ulica now. The time
seems right and there’s a mighty lobby group here to make it happen…
I was wondering if Wolfova in Ljubljana was for Hugo or not — considering his general prominence, I just assumed it was. (I’ll fix the Olomouc typo as soon as I can.)Kravja Dolina is a fantastic name for a street, even better than Mahlerjeva. I remember seeing an old map of Maribor with German street names and it was quite weird to see so many familiar places with entirely unfamiliar names. I can’t remember where I saw it; if anyone has any idea let me know.Dr S., I know there is a little plaque honoring Joyce’s quick transit through the Ljubljana train station, although I haven’t seen it with my own eyes. If there’s a Mahler statue somewhere, I’d definitely like to see that. Anyone know about it?
I read someplace that Joyce actually spent more time in Pula than in Trst.
There is a bust of Mahler on the house in Ljubljana he lived in (on Mestni trg).
That’s probably the one I had in my memory but couldn’t tell where I’ve seen it. Thanks
- it’s cemetery (cemetary)
- Mahler’s bust in Ljubljana is opposite Magistrat, on the house with DZS bookshop-
Number of addresses is really misleading, esp. as you included just
streets but not also roads, squares etc. There’s also Wolf Street in
Leskovec pri Krškem (after painter Janez Wolf), and Wolf Staircase in
Idrija (the bishop of Ljubljana was born there)- 21 years ago (I think) it was
discovered that Hugo Wolf wasn’t just an Austrian born
in Slovenia (Slovenj Gradec - but at least till 2001 no Wolf Street in
SG) but actually of Slovene origin, as is at least partly also Walter
Wolf, who has (not incidentally) a shop in Wolfova ulica in Ljubljana.-
just on Wednesday I was looking for ice-cream on the shores of Vrbsko
jezero/Wörthersee, and in Majernik/Maiernigg I spotted Mahler’s
Komponierhäuschen. I had heard about itbefore and wanted to visit it (15min walk from the road) but it was open only till 4pm. -
Joyce might have well spent more time in Pulj/Pula/Pola than in
Tr(ie)st(e). I just know he was teaching English in both places. In a
documentary about Trieste lawyer Boris Furlan, shown on TV around
January, it was mentioned that Joyce(not sure what was the connection, I guess he was teaching BF English, or he was a family friend)
was terribly scared of storms and hid under the table until the
thunders and lightnings were over. Which brings us to the storm at
Devin/Duino castle that inspired Rilke to write his Duineser Elegien.
Hmmm, I should definitely look into a spell-checker. Or an editor.I did briefly look for
places like Titov trg (Tito square) and Kardeljev trg (Kardelj square)
and other variations but decided to stick with streets. (For the
curious: there are 711 addresses on Kardelj Square, and 62 on Tito
Square.) I think the basic point still holds, though, which is that
Mahler remains hopelessly outgunned by prominent Yugoslavs.
I also missed an opportunity to see Mahler’s shack in Maiernigg,
despite being palpably close. I hope to remedy that mistake soon…Fascinating stuff about Wolf and Joyce, thanks for mentioning it!