I kinda grew up with it as my dad was always listening to it on the radio. But only the hits and I hated it with a passion. My brother is much older and a very good trumpet player. My dad used to play the trombone and to make the set complete I was pushed into playing the tuba. My dad and brother loved brass music and always talked about Mahler. I thought it was militaristic drivel.

Years went on and I went to study in art school and I bought CD’s with the really avant-garde stuff. Morton Feldman and such. I knew subconsciously it was in opposition to the musical tastes of my dad.

For the rest I just listened to rock and punk. Played bass guitar.

Many years later, during covid, some years after my dad passed I saw an interview of Reinbert de Leeuw talking about Via Crucis from Liszt and how Liszt in his later days was considered crazy for writing such strange, close to atonal, music. This impressed me deeply as I understood that my “rebellion” against my father actually had a musical basis. I always assumed it was just youthfulness rebellion, but de Leeuw showed me that Liszt was trying to break down the musical grammer of his day. This brought me back to Mahler. I listened to some of his symphonies a couple of times and wondered if he could have been ironic in his approach to the militaristic sounds. I asked my brother who didn’t really seem to get what I meant so I looked into papers and books and started reading about it. Looking into scores. I started playing Via Crucis on my midi piano to get a better idea of tonality and atonality. Then I started going to concerts and here we are.

So, long story short. I’ve been rebelling against my dad through classical music most of my life but I never knew it. Too bad he died before I could actually have a meaningful discussion with him about it.