A performance in the style of a Viennese salon" - A Special Concert honoring the Mautner and Robinson Families
Sounds in the Sanctuary Honors Viennese Cousins with Music
A special concert on Friday, August 15, brought the spirit of a 19th-century Viennese salon to life, as musicians and audience alike gathered in tribute to Henry Mautner and Evelyn Robinson—two cousins whose lives were shaped by music, skiing, and the upheaval of history. The performance, featuring Dr. Andrus Madsen on a period-appropriate fortepiano, soprano Anastasia Robinson, and classical guitarist Gary Robinson, included works by J.S. Bach, Mozart, Schubert, C.P.E. Bach, and Meyerbeer, evoking the cultural world the cousins once called home. The final piece was Evelyne’s favorite, Edelweiss. The audience, with tears in their eyes, sang along with Anastasia.
Evelyne and Henry were born in 1925 into the close-knit Gottlieb and Olga Mautner clan of Vienna, Evelyne’s parents, Frank and Elizabeth and Henry’s, parents, Frank and Maria, spent their early years surrounded by music, books, art, and a vibrant sense of family life. Evelyn was an avid skier from a young age, while Henry found joy in reading and chemistry experiments.
Their idyllic life didn’t last. Their lives changed with the Anschluss (the Nazi takeover of Austria) on March 12, 1938, which marked the end of their childhood in Vienna and Switzerland, and the beginning of peril and displacement. After the Anschluss, my Viennese family needed to get out of Austria. They were particularly concerned about the children. One of my Pick cousins recalls that Rudolf Pick, Evi’s older cousin, had to report to the Gestapo and was beaten up. The family arranged for him to leave Vienna immediately. First, he went to England and later to the United States. My grandparents also planned to leave but were unable to obtain visas to other countries. Recognizing the process would take some time, in September of 1938, they sent my mother to her aunt and uncle, Maria and Frank Mautner, in Maribor, Yugoslavia. At that point, Yugoslavia was still free of Nazi occupation, but the Mautners recognized that they, too, would likely need to leave. Their son, Henry, was attending a boarding school in Zug, Switzerland.
In the meantime, my grandparents were looking for ways to smuggle their money and jewels out of Vienna. In Davos, Switzerland on a ski holiday, they met a banker, who agreed to invest in gold or other currencies whatever money my grandparents could send him. When my grandparents returned to Vienna, they had a clear mission –- to figure out a way to send this banker money. The sense of foreboding became even more acute with Kristallnacht, the massive attack on Jews on November 9-10, 1938, that signaled the end of life as the Picks and Mautners had lived previously.
My mother was only vaguely aware at the time of her family’s heroic efforts to escape Nazi Vienna. For much of that period, she was in Maribor awaiting letters from her family. The diary she kept before emigrating and then in Chicago and Providence after arriving in the United States show a girl who is more concerned about the pressures of daily life than the politics that made that life so challenging. Yet, as her later reminiscences showed, she was profoundly affected by the events surrounding her. Although not as harrowing as her contemporary diarist, Anne Frank, my mother’s experiences with Naziism were no less compelling.
Evelyne’s family eventually made their way to Rhode Island; Henry’s to Southern California—both arriving in the United States in 1941. Though their education had been interrupted, they quickly adapted to their new American lives while always holding onto the memory of home.
Later years brought them back together more frequently—especially in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where Evelyne, with her husband Justin, welcomed friends and family to their chalet. Henry, by then an academic at Yale and Tuft’s medical school, joined in, skiing alongside Evelyne and reconnecting with the family that had once been scattered.
The concert was not only a remembrance of Evelyne and Henry in what would be their 100th birthday year, but also a celebration of the enduring legacy of family, resilience, and cultural heritage. That legacy lives on thanks in part to their next generation—particularly Gail Robinson and her husband Martin Kessel—whose deep commitment to Jewish life and to the North Country community has helped ground these stories in living memory. The Mautner memorial concert, rich with music and meaning, is a tribute to lives well lived, and to a family whose roots continue to inspire.
Written by Anna McClellan with contributions from Dorothea Mautner and Gail Robinson