a run-of-the-mill-orchestra. Just imagine, last week I heard the Winterreise sung by a Leipzig bass, I won't mention his name, it would not actually mean anything to you, after all you are not interested in theoretical music at all, you are lucky, he said, that bass was a disaster. Always inevitably The Crow, he said, it is insufferable. Such a recital is not worth dressing for, I regretted my clean shirt. I do not write in The Times about such rubbish, he said. Mahler, Mahler, Mahler, he said, that too is enervating. But the Mahler vogue has passed its peak, thank God, he said, Mahler really is the most overrated composer of the century. Mahler was an excellent conductor, but he is a mediocre composer, like all good conductors, like, for example, Hindemith, and like Klemperer. The Mahler vogue was something awful for me all these years, the whole world was in a positive Mahler delirium, it was unbearable. And did you know that my wife's grave, where I too will be buried, is right next to Mahler's grave? Oh well, at the cemetery it really is a matter of indifference whom one is lying next to, even to lie next to Mahler does not worry me. Das Lied von der Erde with Kathleen Ferrier, perhaps, Reger said, anything else by Mahler I reject, it is not worth anything, it does not stand up to closer examination. By comparison Webern is truly a genius, not to mention Schoenberg and Berg. No, Mahler was an aberration. Mahler is the typical art nouveau fashion composer, needless to say a lot worse than Bruckner, who has quite a few kitschy similarities with Mahler. At this time of year Vienna has nothing to offer to a person with intellectual interests, and unfortunately very little to one with musical interests, he said. But of course the foreigners who come to the city are easily satisfied, they go to the Opera regardless of what is on, even if it is the worst rubbish, and they attend the most ghastly concerts and clap their hands sore and, as you can see, they even stream into the Natural Science Museum and into the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Civilized humanity's hunger for culture is enormous, the perversity reflected by this state of affairs is worldwide. Vienna is a cultural concept, Reger said, even though there has virtually been no culture in Vienna for a long time, and one day there will really be no culture of any kind left in Vienna, but it will nevertheless be a cultural concept even then. Vienna will always be a cultural concept, it will the more stubbornly be a cultural concept the less culture there is in it. And soon there will really be no culture left in this city, he said. These progressively more stupid governments which we have here in Austria will gradually see to it that soon there is no culture of any kind left in Austria, only philistinism, Reger said. The atmosphere here in Austria is getting ever more anti-cultural and everything points to the fact that before very long Austria will be a totally culture-less country. But I shall not live to see that depressing end of the trend, you may, Reger said, you may live to see it, but I won't, I am too old now to live to see the final decline and actual culture-lessness in Austria. The light of culture will be extinguished in Austria, believe me, the dull-wittedness which has been at the helm in this country for so long will before long extinguish the light of Culture. Then it will be dark in Austria, Reger said. But you can say what you like in this respect, no one will listen to you, you will be regarded as a fool. What use is there in my writing in The Times what I think of Austria and what, sooner or later hut within the foreseeable future, is happening to Austria? No use, Reger said, not the least. A pity I won't live to see it, I mean the Austrians fumbling about in the dark because their light of culture has gone out. A pity I won't be able to participate, he said. You may wonder why I asked you to come here again today. There is a reason. But I won't tell you the reason until later. I do not know how to tell you the reason. I do not know. I think about it all the time and I do not know. I have been here for hours, thinking about it and I do not know. Irrsigler is my witness, Reger said, I have been sitting here on the settee for hours, wondering how to tell you why Ihave asked you to come to the Kunsthistorisches Museum again today. Later, later, Reger said, give me time. We commit a crime and are unable to report it quite simply without ado, Reger said. Give me time to calm down, he said, I have already told Irrsigler but I cannot tell you yet, he said, it really is disgraceful. By the way, what I said to you yesterday about the so-called Tempest Sonata is certainly interesting and I am also certain that what I said to you about that so-called Tempest Sonata is correct, but it is probably more interesting to me than it is to you. This is what always happens when we talk about a subject because the subject fascinates us, but it fascinates us more than the person on whom, when all is said and done, we force it with all the frantic ruthlessness we are capable of. I forced these views on the so-called Tempest Sonata upon you yesterday, that is a fact. In connection with my lecture on the Art of the Fugue, he said, I found it necessary also to examine the Tempest Sonata and yesterday I was feeling in a positively ideal state for it and I made you the victim of my musicological passion, as indeed I very frequently make you the victim of my musicological passion because I have no other person equally suitable for it. I very often think, you have come at just the right moment, what would I do without you, he said. Yesterday I troubled you with the Tempest Sonata, who knows what piece of music I may trouble you with the day after tomorrow, he said, there are so many musicological subjects in my head which I am most anxious to elucidate; but I need a listener, a victim as it were, for my compulsive musicological talking, he said, because my continuous talk about musicological topics is certainly a kind of musicological compulsive talk. Everybody has his own, his very own, compulsive talk, mine is musicological. I have had this musicological compulsive talk all my musicological life, because my life undoubtedly is nothing but musicological, just as yours is philosophical, that much is obvious. Of course I could say today that everything I said to you about the Tempest Sonata yesterday isnonsense today, since everything that is said is nonsense, but we do utter that nonsense convincingly, Reger said. Anything that is said sooner or later turns out to be nonsense, but if we utter it convincingly, with the most incredible vehemence we can muster, then it is no crime, he said. Anything we think we also wish to utter, Reger said, and basically we do not rest until we have uttered it, because if we keep silent about it we choke on it. Mankind would have choked long ago if it had kept silent about all the nonsense it thought throughout its history, any individual who keeps silent too long chokes, and mankind too cannot remain silent too long because it would otherwise choke, even though what the individual thinks or what mankind thinks and what every individual has ever thought and what mankind has ever thought is nothing but nonsense. Sometimes we are masters of speech and sometimes we are masters of silence and we perfect our mastery to the utmost, he said, our lives are interesting in exactly the measure to which we have succeeded in developing our mastery of speech and our mastery of silence.