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Gustav Mahler-Richard Strauss Correspondence 1888-1911
Letters illuminate the friendship between Strauss and Mahler and discusses their views on music and composition
172 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1985
About the author
Gustav Mahler
541 books31 followersGustav Mahler was a late-Romantic composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born to a Jewish family in the village of Kalischt in Bohemia, in what was then the Austrian Empire, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic. His family later moved to nearby Iglau (now Jihlava), where Mahler grew up.
As a composer, Mahler acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 the music was discovered and championed by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became a frequently performed and recorded composer, a position he has sustained into the 21st century.
Born in humble circumstances, Mahler displayed his musical gifts at an early age. After graduating from the Vienna Conservatory in 1878, he held a succession of conducting posts of rising importance in the opera houses of Europe, culminating in his appointment in 1897 as director of the Vienna Court Opera. During his ten years in Vienna, Mahler—who had converted to Catholicism to secure the post—experienced regular opposition and hostility from the anti-Semitic press. Nevertheless, his innovative productions and insistence on the highest performance standards ensured his reputation as one of the greatest of opera conductors, particularly as an interpreter of the stage works of Wagner and Mozart. Late in his life he was briefly director of New York's Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic.
Mahler's oeuvre is relatively small; for much of his life composing was necessarily a part-time activity while he earned his living as a conductor. Aside from early works such as a movement from a piano quartet composed when he was a student in Vienna, Mahler's works are designed for large orchestral forces, symphonic choruses and operatic soloists. Most of his twelve symphonic scores are very large-scale works, often employing vocal soloists and choruses in addition to augmented orchestral forces. These works were often controversial when first performed, and several were slow to receive critical and popular approval; exceptions included his Symphony No. 2, Symphony No. 3, and the triumphant premier of his Eighth Symphony in 1910. Some of Mahler's immediate musical successors included the composers of the Second Viennese School, notably Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten are among later 20th-century composers who admired and were influenced by Mahler. The International Gustav Mahler Institute was established in 1955 to honour the composer's life and work.
As a composer, Mahler acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 the music was discovered and championed by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became a frequently performed and recorded composer, a position he has sustained into the 21st century.
Born in humble circumstances, Mahler displayed his musical gifts at an early age. After graduating from the Vienna Conservatory in 1878, he held a succession of conducting posts of rising importance in the opera houses of Europe, culminating in his appointment in 1897 as director of the Vienna Court Opera. During his ten years in Vienna, Mahler—who had converted to Catholicism to secure the post—experienced regular opposition and hostility from the anti-Semitic press. Nevertheless, his innovative productions and insistence on the highest performance standards ensured his reputation as one of the greatest of opera conductors, particularly as an interpreter of the stage works of Wagner and Mozart. Late in his life he was briefly director of New York's Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic.
Mahler's oeuvre is relatively small; for much of his life composing was necessarily a part-time activity while he earned his living as a conductor. Aside from early works such as a movement from a piano quartet composed when he was a student in Vienna, Mahler's works are designed for large orchestral forces, symphonic choruses and operatic soloists. Most of his twelve symphonic scores are very large-scale works, often employing vocal soloists and choruses in addition to augmented orchestral forces. These works were often controversial when first performed, and several were slow to receive critical and popular approval; exceptions included his Symphony No. 2, Symphony No. 3, and the triumphant premier of his Eighth Symphony in 1910. Some of Mahler's immediate musical successors included the composers of the Second Viennese School, notably Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten are among later 20th-century composers who admired and were influenced by Mahler. The International Gustav Mahler Institute was established in 1955 to honour the composer's life and work.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 7, 2023
This book is a true treasure for those who like music by Gustav Mahler and/ or Richard Strauss. What Herta Blaukopf has achieved is a fine result of great scholarship. For a long time the letters that Mahler and Strauss exchanged, in sofar they still existed, were – sometimes deliberately – not available for the public and partly spread over many different places. And there still are/ stay quite a bunch missing; in some of those cases in the answers to a missing letter are indications of the subject or even concrete questions that the letters refers to, so Blaukopf could reconstruct a more complete ‘image’ of the conversation.
The second half of this book is an exquisite essay on the relation between the two persons, who both were conductors and composers, how their relation developed in both areas. The matter of them being friends as well as rivals had been mentioned in some other reviews about this book. I want to mention the position that Mahler’s wife Alma has taken in her own books with correspondance and remembrances about the period. In 1940 Allert de Lange in Amsterdam published Alma Mahler’s ‘Gustav Mahler. Erinnerungen und Briefe’. I will give you some citations from her preface.
“I have written this book many years ago. My goal was to publish it after my death. … But now the European world has changed fundamentally. … I no longer feel hindered in reporting openly about experiences with people who are still active and play a role in the Third Reich today. ... Everything that is told about Richard Strauss is based on the fresh entries in my diary. One should not forget that this greatest master of contemporary music was Gustav Mahler's only rival in the first decade of our century.”
Herta Blaukopf explains that looking carefully at the contence and tendencies in all those letters that she has brought to the surface must lead to milder conclusions about the relation Mahler-Strauss. Let us not confuse the differences in character with differences in trying to shape their careers; how many times didn’t they offer the other one great chances for perform their compositions, be it through influences in deciding organisations or directly by their position in their domicile at the time. Friendship prevailed. You could say, as Blaukopf states, there was some real rivalry between Alma Mahler and Richard Strauss: she had wanted to publish letters by Strauss in her book, but Strauss did not give her permission, according to his letter to Alma dated August 9, 1939. “This letter [here I cite Blaukopf] seems to have made Alma Mahler extremely angry and was the immediate reason for the preface.”
Well, that puts this whole chapter in another perspective.
For me, this book is a fine, if not refined and important primary source of knowledge about favourite composers of mine, especially Mahler, and on top of that the detailed analysis of their correspondence by one of the most respected music scholars. I was in the public in april 1988, when she was one of the guest speakers about Mahler in a symposium organised on the occasion of the reopening of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and september 1989 in Hamburg, where she spoke about the importance of digging into the biography of Mahler. So when I read her texts it is easy for me to hear her elegant Viennese pronounciation. JM
It makes one think about modern times and the misinformation, and worse, desinformation that is being generated and spread, sometimes harmless but too many times manipulative and even desastrous. Anyway, I will read Alma Mahler’s texts even more carefull, knowing about the forementioned connotation. JM
The second half of this book is an exquisite essay on the relation between the two persons, who both were conductors and composers, how their relation developed in both areas. The matter of them being friends as well as rivals had been mentioned in some other reviews about this book. I want to mention the position that Mahler’s wife Alma has taken in her own books with correspondance and remembrances about the period. In 1940 Allert de Lange in Amsterdam published Alma Mahler’s ‘Gustav Mahler. Erinnerungen und Briefe’. I will give you some citations from her preface.
“I have written this book many years ago. My goal was to publish it after my death. … But now the European world has changed fundamentally. … I no longer feel hindered in reporting openly about experiences with people who are still active and play a role in the Third Reich today. ... Everything that is told about Richard Strauss is based on the fresh entries in my diary. One should not forget that this greatest master of contemporary music was Gustav Mahler's only rival in the first decade of our century.”
Herta Blaukopf explains that looking carefully at the contence and tendencies in all those letters that she has brought to the surface must lead to milder conclusions about the relation Mahler-Strauss. Let us not confuse the differences in character with differences in trying to shape their careers; how many times didn’t they offer the other one great chances for perform their compositions, be it through influences in deciding organisations or directly by their position in their domicile at the time. Friendship prevailed. You could say, as Blaukopf states, there was some real rivalry between Alma Mahler and Richard Strauss: she had wanted to publish letters by Strauss in her book, but Strauss did not give her permission, according to his letter to Alma dated August 9, 1939. “This letter [here I cite Blaukopf] seems to have made Alma Mahler extremely angry and was the immediate reason for the preface.”
Well, that puts this whole chapter in another perspective.
For me, this book is a fine, if not refined and important primary source of knowledge about favourite composers of mine, especially Mahler, and on top of that the detailed analysis of their correspondence by one of the most respected music scholars. I was in the public in april 1988, when she was one of the guest speakers about Mahler in a symposium organised on the occasion of the reopening of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and september 1989 in Hamburg, where she spoke about the importance of digging into the biography of Mahler. So when I read her texts it is easy for me to hear her elegant Viennese pronounciation. JM
It makes one think about modern times and the misinformation, and worse, desinformation that is being generated and spread, sometimes harmless but too many times manipulative and even desastrous. Anyway, I will read Alma Mahler’s texts even more carefull, knowing about the forementioned connotation. JM
April 11, 2022
Each composer's letters strangely correspond to their style of music. Mahler: anxious, self-serious, long-winded. Strauss: self-assured, light-hearted, straightforward. Strangely because there isn't much content in these letters, mainly compliments and practical dealings between colleagues. Blaukopf's bookending essay puts them in context and makes this volume a good book.
April 3, 2015
Letters between two major composers working in and around Vienna (which happens to be a geographic area of interest for me). Great primary source material about music during Fin-de-siecle Vienna. These two important composers definitely scratched each others' backs, but they also learned from each other. And the details about things like doing battle with the Vienna censor, working out logistics of performances, and finding time to compose, are all quite interesting. This sort of primary material is worth many times what some generalist tells you things were all about. For another good primary source for this region and time period, see Alma Mahler's published diaries.
May 16, 2008
This is a nice book for those who like classical music, specifically Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss.
These two famous composers were friends AND rivals.
Mahler wrote music to try to communicate his feelings about God, nature, and the universe.
Strauss wrote music to make money.
Both were remarkably good at what they did. This book contains dozens of letters that the two exchanged over their many years of association, and these letters help readers decide for themselves about the personalities of these two giants.
These two famous composers were friends AND rivals.
Mahler wrote music to try to communicate his feelings about God, nature, and the universe.
Strauss wrote music to make money.
Both were remarkably good at what they did. This book contains dozens of letters that the two exchanged over their many years of association, and these letters help readers decide for themselves about the personalities of these two giants.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews