Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) - photo 1
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) - photo 2
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) - photo 3

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Lot 235
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 100
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1109035
Lot 235 | Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Estimate value
£ 6 000 – 9 000
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Autograph letter signed (‘Gustav Mahler’) to Emil [Freund], [Vienna, 1 November 1880]
In German. Four pages, 170 x 107mm, bifolium. Provenance : Sotheby’s, 29 November 1985, lot 140.

An important early letter on the death of a friend and the insanity of Hans Rott, the moral effect of vegetarianism and the completion of Das klagende Lied, ‘truly a child of sorrow’. Mahler finds it almost impossible to speak to anybody who knew him in happier days: Hans Rott has gone mad and he fears the same fate will befall [Anton] Krisper. ‘Misery is at home everywhere, and clothes itself in the strangest guises, as though to mock poor human beings. If you know of one happy person on this earth, tell me his name quickly, before I lose the last of what courage remains in me. Anyone who has watched a truly noble and profound nature struggling against the most shallow meanness, and perishing, can scarcely suppress a shudder when he considers the chances of saving his own poor skin […] Tomorrow will be the first All Soul’s Day I have ever known! Now for [me] too there is a grave on which to lay a wreath’. For the past month, Mahler has been an ‘out and out vegetarian’, praising the moral effect brought on by voluntary castigation of the body – ‘I expect of it no less than the regeneration of humanity’ – and offering dietary advice. Finally, he turns to [Das klagende Lied] ‘My fairy play is finished, at long last – truly a child of sorrow, more than a whole year’s labour – But it has turned out to be worth it. The next thing is to use all means at my disposal to get it performed'.

An early letter to Mahler’s childhood friend, Emil Freund, bearing witness to the completion of Das klagende Lied, one of Mahler’s earliest surviving works. Written during a period of ‘emotional crises’, the upsetting news from his friend to which Mahler refers is the death of relative of Freund’s, a young girl for whom Mahler shared a mutual regard: Freund explains the circumstances surrounding her death in a note included by Alma Mahler in the Briefe. Hans Rott was a contemporary of Mahler’s at the Vienna Conservatory, described by Mahler as a ‘musician of genius’ after his death at the age of 25.

Published: Martner, no 11.
Artist:Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911)
Place of origin:Austria
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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United Kingdom
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