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

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Lot 239
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 100
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1109039
Lot 239 | Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Estimate value
£ 6 000 – 9 000
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Autograph letter signed (‘Gust. Mahler’) to Emil [Freund], n.p. [probably New York], n.d. [early 1910]
In German. Four pages, 184 x 141mm, bifolium, scattered autograph cancellations. Provenance: Sotheby’s, 9 & 10 May 1985, lot 137.

An unpublished letter to his lawyer and childhood friend, Emil Freund, giving urgent instructions for the publication of the 8th Symphony by Universal Edition. Not collected in the editions of Alma Mahler, Martner nor Blaukopf. Mahler discusses in some detail the plans for the publication of the work, stating his concern that the vocal score should appear in time for the first performance, and underlining the necessity of adequate advertising: ‘It must also be publicised’. Given ‘the extraordinary scale of such a work’, Mahler frets that it would be most practical to begin working towards publication in short order. At this point, ‘it is completely impossible for me to make any compositional changes […] Based on the premiere, we can address the orchestration or possibly punctuation of the choir or solo voices. And that is not so important that we can’t already lay down the fundamentals of the score’. He goes on to mention a meeting with his manager in New York, before listing the medications he currently requires.

From the very beginning, Mahler was personally involved in the detailed negotiations over the publication of the Eighth Symphony: he first met with Emil Hertzka, the chief executive of Universal Edition, in June 1909, before asking Emil Freund to draw up a contract post-haste. Mahler had known Freund, his lawyer and executor, since childhood: the two lived in neighbouring villages in the Jihlava days and retained a cordial relationship across the years before Mahler engaged Freund’s services. Much of their correspondence dates from 1909-1910 and revolves – as the present letter does – around Mahler’s publishing contracts. In this undated letter, Mahler is evidently concerned about progress towards publication of the Eighth: some of this urgency must have stemmed from the fact that already in the summer of 1909 he was in discussion with the impresario Emil Gutmann – who had been instrumental in arranging performances of the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies – about a premiere of the 8th Symphony in September 1910. Mahler understood that J.V. von Wöss, the in-house music editor of Universal Edition, was going to prepare the vocal score over the summer so that it would be completed by 1 September 1909, but this was not to be: the vocal material was not finished until April 1910, but Mahler was very impressed with the quality of the finished work and thanks to Gutmann's persistence, the ‘double’ premiere took place as planned on 12 and 13 September 1910, representing the climax of his public career as a conductor-composer. 1910, the year before his death, was a busy one for Mahler: he also entered into negotiations with Universal Edition to publish ‘definitive’ versions of his first four symphonies, which entailed further revisions to the Fourth during the summer of that year.
Artist:Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911)
Place of origin:Austria
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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