I was born in Vienna. My father was a Hungarian Catholic, my mother was half Sephardic Jew, half Bosnian Muslim. I was raised in the Synagogue. I attended the Vienna conservatory, where I studied with the same teachers as Gustav Mahler did. What an impact he had on my life!As a young composer, I showed one of my compositions to Brahms. He took out one by Beethoven and set it next to mine, and told me very bluntly how mine came up short. But then he offered me a stipend to compose. I found work as a conductor, eventually becoming the principal Kapellmeister at the Weiner Volksoper. My first opera, "Sarema" won a prize, and attracted the attention of Mahler.I had many private students. One was the impossibly beautiful society girl Alma Schindler. We fell in love, and our lessons were sometimes spent on other subjects than music... Her family opposed our marriage, due to my Jewish background and relatively poor resources. Then she met Mahler. Ironic, isn't it?...It took me much of the rest of my life to get over her. How many of my works express my agony in losing her! But Mahler hired me to work at the Royal opera. I prepared a great new opera to be performed there, but suddenly Mahler resigned, and the new director dropped my opera. I also resigned in protest. Did I resent Mahler for stealing my love? No. He hadn't known, and when he did find out, he chastised HER for her treatment of me. I worshipped him, as did my best friend Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg was poor, and didn't have money for music lessons. I taught him everything he knew. He married my sister. See? I gave him everything! I myself married, trying to get over HER. The marriage wasn't very happy, although I stuck by it until she died.I eventually took the job as principal conductor of the New German Opera in Prague. I wrote my greatest music there--my second string quartet, the operas "A Florentine Tragedy" and "The Dwarf" (my greatest "Alma piece"), and the "Lyric Symphony". After finishing it, I went into a creative crisis. I didn't compose much for several years. I did write one opera, but then destroyed it.Eventually I started anew, inspired by some of my younger colleagues. I wrote more operas, songs, orchestral works, and string quartets. I remarried, as well, to a young voice student of mine (she was 30 years younger!) . I also moved to Berlin and worked as a conductor at the Kroll Opera with Otto Klemperer. But by this time Hitler was starting to cause trouble for those of us with Jewish blood. Eventually I fled back to Vienna, and spent my time in composition. But I couldn't get my works performed or published due to the political atmosphere.When the Germans invaded Austria, I fled to the United States. I'd been promised by one of my students who was a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera that my most recent opera "King Kandaules" would be performed at the Met. But there was a nude scene in the second act that was indispensable to the plot. He said it couldn't be performed in the conservative United States. I tried to write another opera, but soon had a stroke, and never composed again. travel layout @ HOT FreeLayouts.com MyHotComments
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