Selected Members Engelbert Pernerstorfer | Victor Adler | Richard von Kralik | Friedrich Eckstein Gustav Mahler composer, conductor Mahler first came into contact with the Pernerstorfer circle via Sigfried Lipiner. Mahler met Lipiner through his friend Albert Spiegler (who also was connected by marriage to the Victor Adler family.) Mahler's lifelong relationship with Lipiner reflects a deeply shared set of ideas about society and the role of art within it, and had clear influence on Mahler's Third Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde. Victor Adler was hosting meetings at his home at the time that Mahler first entered the Circle. Apparently, Adler purchased a top quality piano for his house so that Mahler could practice on it. Further, he worked to find piano pupils for Mahler, providing Mahler with income while he attended the Vienna Conservatory. Mahler apparently also occasionally played piano for Circle meetings. His friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner describes hearing him play Wagner's Die Meistersinger at Kralik's house. Mahler's interest in the circle reflects intense philosophical and metaphysical interests that were an integral part of his work as a composer and conductor. Mahler was influenced to some degree by Neitzsche; he uses one of Neitzsche's poems in his Third Symphony. He certainly was influenced by Wagner. Besides conducting Wagner's work, Alma Mahler noted in her commentary on Mahler's letters that "Mahler had often said that except for Wagner in [his book] Beethoven, only Schopenhauer in The World as Will and Idea had had anything worthwhile to say about the essence of music." Mahler was also quick to espouse Wagner's vegetarianism, writing in November of 1880 that "I have been a complete vegetarian for a month. The moral effect of this way of life resulting from the voluntary servitude of my body and the resulting freedom from wants is immense. You can imagine how convinced of it I am when I expect a regeneration of the human race from it." Clearly, Mahler was not stranger to the vision of radical social change held within the Circle. Engelbert Pernerstorfer | Victor Adler | Richard von Kralik | Friedrich Eckstein
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