MARGARETHE
Margarethe Hammerschlag Ungar (1894- 1985) gave free lessons in conversational German at her huge old-fashioned apartment on Riverside Drive. She tutored many people- musicians, singers and Columbia University students. I learned about her from Larry Glazener of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. The topic of conversation in the lessons was often the cultural life in Vienna from 1910-1930. She had a lot to share with the world. Paul Hammerschlag (1860-1933), her father, was Gustav Mahler’s personal banker and close friend. Mahler himself came to the Hammerschlag apartment many times to dine. In addition, in lieu of paying back a loan from Paul Hammerschlag, Mahler gave piano lessons to the two eldest Hammerschlag daughters- Margarethe (or Grethl) and Liesl (or Lilly).
Here is a photo, taken from behind, of Gustav Mahler at the piano teaching Margarethe Hammerschlag in 1908. (Courtesy of Rose Isepp)
This a postcard Mahler sent Grethl. The postcard is addressed to “Fraulein Grethl Hammerschlag”. On the left side the message reads, “Heartfelt Greetings Gustav Mahler” followed by a short musical quotation from one of Zerlina’s arias in “Don Giovanni”. The date “August 24, 1908” is on the bottom left.
Courtesy of Rose Isepp
Here is the postcard that Gustav Mahler sent Lilly Hammerschlag (Grethl’s elder sister)
Courtesy of Rose Isepp
Below is a picture of Margarethe Hammerschlag with her beloved grandfather Josef Breuer (taken around 1905). Those who knew Grethl in later life can easily recognize the bright, animated expression she shows in this childhood photo.
Josef Breuer (1842-1925), developed the “cathartic cure” or “talking cure” in the 1880’s. His talented protégé Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) made Breuer’s discovery the basis for psychoanalysis. After a contentious dispute with his former mentor, Sigmund Freud eventually claimed complete credit for his teacher’s work. This created lasting ill will between the two men.
Continuing this story, in the period after the Great War, Margarethe Ungar was part of the artistic/social whirl of life in Vienna-then the music capitol of the entire world! She attended the Opera and the Wiener Philharmoniker often. She met Edouard deReszke, Enrico Caruso, Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter and many other great artists. She even got to meet the composer Alban Berg (1885-1935} at a party. She told me this about him, “Alban Berg was such a pleasant man with such a beautiful face but he wrote such horrible music!” I am an admirer of Berg’s music and gave her a skeptical look. She shook her head back and forth philosophically and said “Well, OK, but the libretti (to Wozzeck and Lulu) are just horrendous, simply horrendous!” On December 14th, 1919 Margarethe Hammerschlag married Felix Ungar. For her wedding she received a spectacular gift! Her friend Alma Mahler, widow of the composer, gave her one very large page of sketches ( skizzenblatt ) in ink for the Resurrection Symphony! Fifty years later, Frau Ungar showed me those very same sketches. I remember seeing the words “O Glaube” in bold scratchy black ink. Also, I remember that the manuscript was so large that it stuck out the edges of its frame. It was interesting for me to see that Mahler “sketched” in ink and not pencil. Here is some information about the page of sketches from the Mahler Foundation.
In 1938 the Nazi Anschluss of Austria shattered Margarethe’s “comfortable” world. I found the continuation of her story in the archives of the Unites States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. “ Felix Ungar (1887-1970) ..was imprisoned following the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 and was only released after signing over his business. ”
That was a time in Margarethe Hammerschlag Ungar life that she never spoke about with me. She would only allude to it and say, “That was a difficult time.”
E. Randol Schoenberg, the grandson of the composer, keeps a database of Holocaust survivors at www.geni.com . He told me that he needed a photo of Margarethe for this data base. I reached out to a former colleague, violist Tina Pelikan, who is a lifelong friend of Margarethe’s granddaughter Pamela Wilson. Recently, Pamela Wilson discovered, to my astonishment, a group of wonderful and historic photographs of Margarethe Hammerschlag Ungar. They were in her former art studio in San Francisco.
I am extremely grateful to Pamela for giving me permission to use some of them in this article.
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