Memory

In many a night I lay sleepless in my bed in grandmother’s “cabinet” which I then inhabited, the rain dropping dismally against the windowpane, a late horse-drawn carriage clattering slowly by on the rain-wet pavement and the desperate far, far-away howling of a train whistle adding a note of unbearable, heartrending torment to the utterly hopeless ensemble of sounds.  This image I incorporated ten years later in one of the songs of my cycle “Gesänge des späten Jahres”.

My first musical experiences outside our house were connected with the Volksoper, where I was taken in order to see the Christmas plays which were put on by most theaters in children’s matinees during the Christmas season.  These were usually dramatizations of some of the well-known fairy tales, fixed up with incidental music, dances and songs.

The reality of war was driven hone to us one night, when we were aroused from sleep by a perfectly fiendish din.  I was lifted from my bed with a horrible start, and saw everything in the room plainly as at daytime.  The sky outside was bright and glaring as in midday.  Ghastly rumbling seemed to come down from the roof, shattering of glass and objects tumbling down on the ceiling and through the chimney.  My father thought it was an air raid – nobody had ever witnessed one, or had an idea how it was.