The little drummer boy

Conductor Leonard Bernstein offers a televisual “essay” on the origins of Mahler’s music. With scores, anecdotes, excerpts of concerts or at the piano himself, the master becomes student again and tries to prove to us that Mahler could not escape his Jewish origins even though he tried impossible ways to set himself apart from it. All his music reflects voluntarily or not – the essence of the man: including sources that he may not have noticed himself! A rare treat nowadays on our screens where “risky stuff”, i.e.not necessarily rating-insured, is not the first priority or programers.