# The music which the masters have assimilated in their childhood forms the texture of



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"The music which the masters have assimilated in their childhood forms the texture of their musical development. It cannot be otherwise and I am unable to understand why the great educators of our age do not lay even greater stress upon this all-important point. _I have said assimilated,-you will notice that I did not say appropriated._ That is quite a different matter. _The music is absorbed and goes through a process of mental digestion until it becomes a part of the person_, just as much as the hair on their heads, or the skin on their bodies. It is stored away in their brain-cells and will come forth again in the minds of creative musicians, not in the same or even similar form, _but often in entirely new and wonderful conceptions._"
-Gustav Mahler

To what extent do you agree with Mahler's view? I thought of it as I was listening to:

11:41 








10:35 








3:23


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I'm not a master, so I can't comment.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Manxfeeder said:


> I'm not a master, so I can't comment.


Mahler was voicing a broader opinion in this interview he gave about the influence of folk songs on German art music, a truth he says which is so obvious to all as to almost make an axiom: "What occurs in childhood makes an indelible impression. The depth of this psychological impression must ever be the rock upon which all educational systems are founded. So it is with music, that the songs which a child assimilates in his youth will determine his musical manhood."


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

7:01 



8:54 



30:15


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