This chapter explores the circumstances of Mahler’s childhood – the physical, social, and psychological conditions in which he was raised – taking at face value his claim that the character of an artist was determined by his experiences between the ages of four and eleven. The external factors of his upbringing, including the physical surroundings and economic circumstances of the family and their social position and religious engagement as part of the first generation of emancipated Jews in the Habsburg empire, created a set of emotional and psychological conditions that we now know to be characteristic of Mahler’s family: ill-matched parents and frequent conflict, the illness and death of half of his siblings, and the outsized presence of Mahler’s raw talent within these family dynamics. The survey of relevant details presented here clarifies the range of experiences in the young composer’s background as he turned in the mid-1870s to serious musical endeavors.

Mahler’s youth in Iglau exposed him to a rich variety of music, much of it originating outside the symphonic and operatic traditions that eventually would occupy him professionally and creatively. The enclave’s provincial location and ethnic diversity gave rise to a singular mixture of folk music traditions. The garrison’s military bands made varied contributions to the city’s everyday sounds and musical life. And as a bastion of German liberalism, Iglau sustained many social, sacred, and municipal organizations that promoted the cultivation and performance of music. This chapter examines these repertories (fiddle music, folk song, rustic dances; military band repertoire, including dances, tunes from operettas, and original works for the ensemble; and music for choral societies and community bands), along with the institutions and performance circumstances that supported them, illuminating sources from which Mahler appropriated materials vitally important to his idiosyncratic compositional voice.

At the time of his departure from Iglau for the Vienna Conservatory in 1875, the fifteen-year-old Mahler had already absorbed the musical, religious, and educational influence of important figures who populated his childhood. The musicians among this group include numerous local performers and music directors who initiated him into the routine of practical professional musicianship. Despite their near-anonymity today, they were in many cases highly skilled artists with considerable training, and they provided the precocious and energetic youngster with a rich introduction to the materials of his art. His religious education was stamped both by his rabbi, J. J. Unger, and by Catholic priests, who together set an extraordinary example of tolerance and collaboration. Evidence of Mahler’s gymnasium years is provided mainly by recollections of school friends such as Theodor Fischer and by the music historian Guido Adler, five years older than Mahler but educated in essentially the same circumstances.