ABSTRACT
Gustav Mahler confronted the problems of Richard Wagner performance the more clearly he recognised that in principle there was no real difference between the production methods of older opera that Wagner so vehemently opposed and the Bayreuth productions. The distinguished nature of the friendship between Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg lay in the fact that in a time of general ethical decline, human and moral relations prevailed in a deeply affecting way between two composers who initially grew from the same soil. A critical examination of Mahler's creativity, life and work such as this is absolutely essential because the upholders of culture in liberated Europe must scrutinise very carefully those cultural materials that appear to them to be valuable. Friedrich Lohr, a man of extraordinary modesty, guarded Mahler's letters and his own diary entries like a priceless treasure. Lohr was selfless enough to realise that the privilege of his friendship with Mahler charged him with special kinds of responsibilities.
