TOM ADLER (1938-2010)
It is one of life’s sadder moments when you learn of the death of an admirable friend. It is life at its saddest when ten months have gone by when the truth appears from your Internet search for news about him - and there is his online obituary. I did not know until June 2011 of Tom Adler’s passing in August 2010 although I knew he had Parkinson’s disease for years. I realized some time ago that Tom’s condition would inevitably worsen and that his brave wife Louise would have a huge task confronting her in Tom’s final years. I remember Louise as she helped Tom through the early stages when they were gracious hosts for my visit to their Palm Desert, California, house, and when they visited New York several times. The last time we met was for the opening of a marvelous exhibit on music and Vienna at the Center for Jewish History, an exhibit that had among its great names that of Guido Adler.
Tom and I gradually lost touch even with the Internet. I did not know what sort of effort it may have become for him to keep his wonderful blog going. I felt that he needed to conserve his energy to do those things that gave such great meaning to his life, and I did not want to intrude on his needed moments for lengthy writing time. I can’t say much more factually about Tom than what was written in a very complete obituary, which I copied from the San Diego Union-Tribune of August 29, 2010, Tom’s hometown newspaper - his original hometown was Vienna, Austria. (Read this wonderful tribute to Tom, at http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/signonsandiego/
obituary.aspx?n=tom-adler&pid=144988528.) Frankly, I wanted to reprint it but I didn’t want to get into any trouble over copyright.
Before his blog Warrior Memoirs is taken down, you can find the story of Tom and his grandfather’s legacy in Tom’s book Lost to the World, at http://warriormemoirs.blogspot.com/2007/01/lost-to-world-book.html.
Tom never had any direct memory of his grandfather Dr. Guido Adler. Tom knew of his grandfather as did most people in classical music - if they cared at all to pursue a bit of Central European music history - as the founder of the modern discipline of musicology. Tom’s book is a tribute to his grandfather; it center’s on the story of the music manuscript given to Dr. Adler on his fiftieth birthday by his friend Gustav Mahler. The manuscript was the autograph (the composer’s handwritten score) of the orchestral version of Mahler’s song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am lost to the world.)
Tom’s book was also a tribute to his Aunt Melanie who was lost to the world in a concentration camp because Melanie tried to protect her aged father and his precious library of music treasures. That library, which included one of the three original Beethoven death masks, was a sure magnet for the Nazi despoilers who got Melanie out of the way and then one of them got his hands on the Mahler manuscript. The book is a sad, wondrous and triumphant story of Tom’s dedication to righting the wrongs of the despoliation of his grandfather’s estate and how he fought the Austrian government to get his grandfather’s Mahler autograph returned to him. His book is very much a tribute to his heroic aunt who was lost to Tom and his surviving family.
I’ll miss you, Tom. You will never be lost to those who knew you.
Janet Wasserman
June 8, 2011
It is one of life’s sadder moments when you learn of the death of an admirable friend. It is life at its saddest when ten months have gone by when the truth appears from your Internet search for news about him - and there is his online obituary. I did not know until June 2011 of Tom Adler’s passing in August 2010 although I knew he had Parkinson’s disease for years. I realized some time ago that Tom’s condition would inevitably worsen and that his brave wife Louise would have a huge task confronting her in Tom’s final years. I remember Louise as she helped Tom through the early stages when they were gracious hosts for my visit to their Palm Desert, California, house, and when they visited New York several times. The last time we met was for the opening of a marvelous exhibit on music and Vienna at the Center for Jewish History, an exhibit that had among its great names that of Guido Adler.
Tom and I gradually lost touch even with the Internet. I did not know what sort of effort it may have become for him to keep his wonderful blog going. I felt that he needed to conserve his energy to do those things that gave such great meaning to his life, and I did not want to intrude on his needed moments for lengthy writing time. I can’t say much more factually about Tom than what was written in a very complete obituary, which I copied from the San Diego Union-Tribune of August 29, 2010, Tom’s hometown newspaper - his original hometown was Vienna, Austria. (Read this wonderful tribute to Tom, at http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/signonsandiego/
obituary.aspx?n=tom-adler&pid=144988528.) Frankly, I wanted to reprint it but I didn’t want to get into any trouble over copyright.
Before his blog Warrior Memoirs is taken down, you can find the story of Tom and his grandfather’s legacy in Tom’s book Lost to the World, at http://warriormemoirs.blogspot.com/2007/01/lost-to-world-book.html.
Tom never had any direct memory of his grandfather Dr. Guido Adler. Tom knew of his grandfather as did most people in classical music - if they cared at all to pursue a bit of Central European music history - as the founder of the modern discipline of musicology. Tom’s book is a tribute to his grandfather; it center’s on the story of the music manuscript given to Dr. Adler on his fiftieth birthday by his friend Gustav Mahler. The manuscript was the autograph (the composer’s handwritten score) of the orchestral version of Mahler’s song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am lost to the world.)
Tom’s book was also a tribute to his Aunt Melanie who was lost to the world in a concentration camp because Melanie tried to protect her aged father and his precious library of music treasures. That library, which included one of the three original Beethoven death masks, was a sure magnet for the Nazi despoilers who got Melanie out of the way and then one of them got his hands on the Mahler manuscript. The book is a sad, wondrous and triumphant story of Tom’s dedication to righting the wrongs of the despoliation of his grandfather’s estate and how he fought the Austrian government to get his grandfather’s Mahler autograph returned to him. His book is very much a tribute to his heroic aunt who was lost to Tom and his surviving family.
I’ll miss you, Tom. You will never be lost to those who knew you.
Janet Wasserman
June 8, 2011
