This online streaming only event will be specially filmed in Hall One at Kings Place

After the live broadcast, ticket holders and on-demand bookers will be able to watch this performance until midnight on 31 March. For information on how to use KPlayer please refer to our guide or see the KPlayer FAQ.

Does it matter what a composer believes? Or how deep that faith was? In the case of Gustav Mahler the evidence has been muddied by interested parties. He was raised in a traditional Jewish family, before marrying outside the faith, converting to Christianity to become head of the Vienna Opera and ultimately buried by a Catholic priest. Norman Lebrecht, the internationally bestselling author of Why Mahler? and Genius and Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World 1847-1947, uses new research and personal discoveries to present a lecture, with musical illustrations, on how Jewish Mahler really was – or wasn’t.

 Click here to buy Genius & Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847–1947 by Norman Lebrecht from Blackwell’s.

Norman Lebrecht is the world’s bestselling author on classical music. His most recent book was the critically acclaimed Why Mahler?. His Whitbread Award-winning novel, The Song of Names, is currently being developed into a feature film. Aside from the history of Western music, he has a lifelong passion for the culture and chronicles of the Jewish people. He lives in London.