“Max Brod and Theodor Adorno, among others, have written about the ‘Jewishness’ of Mahler’s music. How ‘Jewish’ it might be is less important than how liberating it was for the following generation. Nevertheless, the inner fights of Mahler with his Jewish destiny are illuminated by Natalie Bauer-Lechner, Mahler’s confidante from 1890 to 1902. She gives an account in her unedited journals of Mahler relating a nightmare he had as an eight-year-old, in which Ahasver, the ‘Wandering Jew’, tries to force his walking stick into the hands of the terrified young Gustav. The symbolism speaks for itself.”

– from Forbidden Music