Speakers: Norman Lebrecht

Does it matter what a composer believes? Or how deep that faith was? In the case of Gustav Mahler the evidence has been muddied by interested parties. He was raised in a traditional Jewish family, before marrying outside the faith, converting to Christianity to become head of the Vienna Opera and ultimately buried by a Catholic priest. Norman Lebrecht, the internationally bestselling author of Why Mahler? and Genius and Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World 1847-1947, uses new research and personal discoveries to present a lecture, with musical illustrations, on how Jewish Mahler really was – or wasn’t. An online event live from Kings Place.