The foundation years

The history of the International Gustav Mahler Society in Vienna (henceforth IGMG) is of general interest because the organization both exemplifies, and was exemplary in, the struggles surrounding Mahler's work. It was founded on 11 November 1955, ten years after the end of the holocaust. Today Mahler has reached Olympian heights of recognition, even adoration, but at that time his work was as controversial as it had been during his lifetime. The catastrophic Nazi reign, with its ideological antecedents stretching back to the nineteenth century, contributed its share to this in Germany and Austria. However, to blame the neglect of Mahler's music on this alone would not represent the whole truth. There were only a few musicians throughout the world who believed in Mahler at that time and who occasionally performed a small number of his works in England, Scandinavia, the Soviet Union and the USA. The collection of concert programmes in the IGMG archive offers convincing proof that the much-discussed, surprisingly rapid ‘Mahler boom’ did not come into full effect until the 1970s.

The initiative for the founding of the IGMG came from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Its stance towards Mahler had always been ambivalent: affection and disapproval had played equal parts in their work with him during his appointment as Director of the Vienna Opera. Although the orchestra had dishonoured itself because of the way it treated Jewish members during the time of the Third Reich, it did perform Mahler's First Symphony again on 3 June 1945, a few weeks after the end of the war, and it took over the costs of maintaining Mahler's grave in the cemetery at Grinzing.