The Great Mahler Composing Hut Tour
Today we got up early, hustled over to the Hertz office and picked up our brand-new black Ford Fusion. Then we hit the Autobahn, headed for Steinbach Am Attersee, the site of Mahler’s first composing hut. Although Mahler’s day gig in Vienna was conductor of the Vienna Court Opera, his real passion was composing, and he reserved his summers for seclusion in a site that gave him enough distance from the daily routine of his conductorial chores, and the inspiration of natural surroundings, to work on his compositions. He had small houses, or huts, constructed near where he and his family stayed during the summer, to which he could repair for the earlier part of the day to work on his compositions free from interruption.
This also turns out to be the ideal prescription for a sightseer’s tour of some of the natural wonders of Austria. Each of the huts is located in a region that, even today, boasts outstanding natural beauty.
Steinbach Am Attersee is located in the Salzkammergut region of Austria, with mountain lakes bordered by steep mountain pinnacles, reminiscent of Half-Dome in Yosemite.
