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Mahler's Forgotten Conductor

Heinz Unger and His Search for Jewish Meaning, 1895-1965

Hernan Tesler-Mabé author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:University of Toronto Press

Published:13th Mar '20

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Mahler's Forgotten Conductor cover

Heinz Unger, born in Berlin, Germany, in 1895, was reared from a young age to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a lawyer. However, after attending a 1915 Munich performance of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) conducted by Bruno Walter, Unger decided to devote the rest of his life to music and particularly to the dissemination of Gustav Mahler’s music.

This microhistory explores how the double strands of German and Jewish identity converged in Unger’s lifelong struggle to grasp who he was. Critical to this understanding was Mahler’s music – a music that Unger endowed with exceptional meaning and that was central to his Jewish identity. This book sets this exploration of Unger’s “performative ritual” within a biographical tale of a life lived travelling the world in search of a home, a search that took the conductor from his native Germany to the Soviet Union, England, Spain, and, finally, Canada.

"This is a worthy tribute to a long-forgotten conductor and devoted Mahlerite, whose evangelistic zeal did much to promulgate the composer's music. This in-depth coverage of Unger's life fills a void and, hopefully, paves the way for some trawling of the archives and release of some of the artist's live performances."

-- Stephen Greenbank * MusicWeb International *

"It is exciting to learn about Unger’s eventful, unjustly forgotten life and archive, buoyed by Tesler-Mabé’s passion for reconstructing the conductor’s story."

-- Judah M. Cohen * Canadian Jewish Studies Vol. 31 *

"A useful contribution to Jewish studies, this monograph is a microhistory, a contextual biography of German conductor Heinz Unger."

-- M.N.H. Cheng, Colgate University * CHOICE *
“The engrossing prose and honest narrative about a life that included many disappointments will fetch a broad audience as well as contribute rich material to musicologists who, finally, re envision their field as more than a series of great men. It is to our peril when historians skip over a stratum of musical life that was often ignored in the press.” -- Karen Painter, University of Minnesota * German Studies Review
  • Winner of Canadian Jewish Literary Awards - Biography 2020 (Canada)

ISBN: 9781487505165

Dimensions: 235mm x 160mm x 22mm

Weight: 540g

272 pages