Mahler's Forgotten Conductor

Heinz Unger, born in Berlin, Germany, in 1895, was reared from a young age to follow in his fathers footsteps and become a lawyer. However, after attending a 1915 Munich performance of Gustav Mahlers 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 Mahlers music. This microhistory explores how the double strands of German and Jewish identity converged in Ungers lifelong struggle to grasp who he was. Critical to this understanding was Mahlers music a music that Unger endowed with exceptional meaning and that was central to his Jewish identity. This book sets this exploration of Ungers 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.