The Faith of a Mahler Heretic
Certainly, my heresy is not that I deny Mahler. I love Mahler, but I am not sold on his entire output. Possibly these notes will encourage those who have been dismayed by some unfortunate encounter with the less rewarding parts of his output. For declining to go absolutely ape over the entire corpus, I make no apologies; still, it can't hurt for me to adduce the testimony of Otto Klemperer, who knew Mahler, worked with him, and is one of the greatest conductors of his music. Interviewed toward the end of his life, Klemperer said of his mentor: Today I like his Kindertotenlieder and the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and some of the symphonies. But not all of them. I mean, I am not a stupid, enthusiastic boy: I don't like everything he wrote. Another opinion from which I have drawn some support is my father's. He said long ago, when I was starting to get interested in classical music, that a good deal of it is what he called "sawing around." He meant the many p...