Between: Wednesday 5 September 2012 - September 23.
Venue: Foyer

This exhibition attempts to gather and display the wealth of sources for Mahler's inspiration, primarily through the memories of three key eyewitnesses: Natalie Bauer-Lechner, Alma Mahler and Bruno Walter. Their invaluable testamonies shine a light on the creative process and its many sources of inspiration.

Mahler was always particularly sensitive to his environment, particularly the natural wonder of his Czech homeland, and the folk music and military fanfare that defined the small garrison town of Iglaut in which he was born. In later years, the nature of Austria in the environs of Vienna proved to be a faithful muse. He also spent his summers composing in the Alpine landscapes of Steinbach (in Salzkammergut), Maiernigg (on the shores of the Wörthersee) and later in the Dolomites of South Tirol.

Mahler was profoundly affected by the music of past classical masters, such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Wagner and Bruckner. He also found fertile ground in often considerably more complex sources of literature and philosophy. The ironic humour of Cervantes's Don Quixote was at least as significant to him as the German romantic movement, for instance.

Other authors and thinkers would later exert a major influence on Mahler, including Dostoyevski, Tolstoy and Schopenhauer. Of course, there were also those authors who provided direct sources for individual works, such as the writings of Nietzsche, Goethe and Friedrich Rückert, as well the Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy's Magic Horn), a compilation of German folk songs.

Source: Palace of Arts
Address: 1095 Budapest, Komor Marcell utca 1.