Gustav Mahler[1] and Freud’ carefulness.

Original painting by Stefano Frassetto[2].

 

 

“Abysses and dizzinesses”[3], sometimes impenetrable, as in the Symphony n°2, enflaming and unreachable other times : Gustav Mahler called Symphonies his own uncontrollable emotions[4].

Very appreciated as a conductor[5], although not so popular among orchestral players due to Mahler’ experimental perfectionism, managed – when youngest but already talented and tireless – to oppose his father Bernard – rough and unfortunately violent man with his own family[6] more than in his grocery store for which he obtained a license in 1860 – and to profitably pursue the musical studies he adored and from which Bernard, who nurtured and financed Gustav’ talent, did give him proud reviews.

Second born with fourteen brothers and sisters, many of whom died in their early childhood, and considering himself a support of his mother Marie, so humiliated and unhappy, the young Gustav soon learnt, in front of choleric outbursts, to keep out himself of them, inventing an ‘elsewhere’ where music “opened the doors of a fairy world”[7] and not accessible to other ones, as in his famous ‘Adagio’ of Symphony n°10.

Once achieved success and reached an unexpected comfort that allowed him not only to lead a lively intellectual and sentimental life in Wien, but also to spend long and profitful summers in the lovely Maiernigg, on Wörthersee lake, where he swam and rowed with pleasure, Mahler did never distance from his pain as it was prolific for his works : he worked in a very little cottage of a few square meters he had built in the wood behind his house, and which also now is proposed to visitors.

He was fifty and with an enviable curriculum behind him, put up note by note, concert by concert, opera by opera without sparing of strength and sentiments. His young wife Alma, which from Latin language is translated with ‘soul’ and that as a middle name was Marie like Gustav’ sad mother, was at that time a very brilliant violinist, sure a lot of men envied her to him : she came into the severe musician’ home, she infact not the least of an undefined number of emotional relationships, so candid and passionate on the musician part, and she accepted at first the solitary habits of a thoughtful composer.

In 1920, as a newlywed, he had finished setting to music five poems of the German Friedrich Rückert and, with a special passion, the one known as : “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen…”, ‘I am lost to the world… and I am resting in a kingdom of peace’ (editor’s note) which brings back an imaginary but possible world also in the daily life, but for the best intellects only.

While identifying himself in a reconciliation of the deep pain to which he did never get up to be able to sublimate it, drop by drop, in a living levitation from which one’s body could slip as a distant echo, he was able to obtain a music which, also through the use of strings and a frequent ‘march’ time, could even be hypnotic.

Physically prostrated by the disease, in 19100 “Mahler sought advice to the Wiener neurologist Richard Nepallek, who suggested to consult Sigmund Freud[8].

Freud was at Leyden, in Netherland. Mahler gli telegraphed to him, Freud answered inviting him to come soon.

Then Mahler, fearing the diagnosis, found an excuse not to go, and so on for three times. Finally,  Freud wrote to him that the last possible chance was the end of August, because then he would have left for Sicily.

Mahler set off with reluctance, and along the way wrote to Alma passionate teenage letters : after all, he perfectly realized their qualities, and with some humour too.

Freud spoke with him in the afternoon of August 26, or 27. They talked about for almost four hours, walking together for Leyden.

Freud reassured Mahler : explained to him that his age was not an obstacle, because Alma in him was looking… his own father, lost too soon. Also Mahler, on the other hand, was looking for his own mother in Alma. When Mahler said that his mother was named Marie, and that Marie was Alma’s middle name, Freud decided that Mahler suffered from ‘Marienkomplex’…

Gustav came back to Toblach more relaxed, but… Alma became definitely the ‘myth of Alma’, and their marital love did translat its earthly reality into a wonderful unreal projection…”[9] According to what Freud reported after their talking, Gustav Mahler knew enough about psychoanalysis[10].

However he never practiced it.

 

 

                                      Marina Bilotta Membretti / Cernusco sul Naviglio – August 7, 2020

 

 

[1] Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), Austrian of a Jewish family, was a great musician, also composer and conductor.

[2]Stefano Frassetto is born in Turin in 1968. After his degree in Architecture at ‘Politecnico’ he begun as graphic novelist for local magazines. In the ‘90s he edited in France, on ‘Le Réverbère’ and on ‘Libération’ : then he created ‘Ippo’ for ‘Il Giornalino’ and then the stripe ‘35MQ’ for the swiss magazine ‘20 Minuti’. In 2000 he came into ‘La Stampa’ newspaper as portraitist for cultural page and the insert ‘Tuttolibri’, then for the weekly ‘Origami’. Today he works also for the swiss magazine ‘Le Temps’. In 2022 Frassetto published his first comic review ‘35MQ : 2012/2022 Dieci anni di inettitudine’.

[3] “Mahler. La musica tra Eros e Thanatos”, Quirino Principe 2002 / Bompiani, p.608

[4] The title of this article imitates the refrain of the Italian singer Lucio Battisti song, ‘Emozioni’.

[5] In 1897 he was called to conduct the ‘Imperial Royal Court Opera’, now ‘Wiener Staatsoper’ : in order to accept the job, he decided to be baptized, so converting to Catholicism. From 1909 to 1911, when he died, he was conductor of the ‘New York Philarmonic’, obtaining broad consensus and concerts success.

[6] “Mahler. La musica fra Eros e Thanatos”, cited., pp.86-89

[7] “Mahler. La musica fra Eros e Thanatos”, cited., p.109

[8] Freud was at the time fiftyfour, only four years more than Mahler and already published, among others, “Psychopathology of dailly life” (1901) and “The wit and its relation with unconscious” (1905). Mahler however thought about they both were Jewish by origin and Wiener by adoption, what favoured the musician’s request for that consultation.

[9] “Mahler. La musica tra Eros e Thanatos”, Quirino Principe cited., pp.775-776

[10] “Vita e opere di Freud”by Ernst Jones (1879-1958, neurologist and British psychoanalyst : he was the protagonist in welcoming in England the psychoanalysts persecuted by Nazis; between 1920 and 1939 he founded and directed the ‘International Journal of Psycho-analysis; between 1932 and 1949 he was president of the ‘International Psychoanalytical Association’). Translat. By A.Novelletto and M. Cerletti, Vol. II, Ed. ‘Il Saggiatore’ pp.107-108