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

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Starting price
£ 100
Auction dateClassic
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
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ID 1109040
Lot 240 | Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Autograph letter signed (‘Gustav Mahler’) to Emil Freund (‘Lieber Emil!‘), [New York], [postmarked 21 November 1910]
In German. Four pages, 201 x 123mm, bifolium, printed letter-paper of the Hotel Savoy. Envelope. Provenance : Sotheby’s, 9 & 10 May 1985, lot 138.

‘Frantic’ in New York, Gustav Mahler writes to Emil Freund seeking to direct musical affairs in Vienna from afar and enquiring about developments with the Eighth. Informing Freund that he would like to have a parcel of land registered in both his and Alma’s names, Mahler turns to musical matters: ‘You will have been able to read between the lines of the newspaper hoax about my return to the Court Opera. In fact, it had never even occurred to me to work with a person I do not even know and one who, by all accounts, seems thoroughly unlikable’. He urges Freund to hang on to ‘W’ [Bruno Walter], who will not be offered a contract as favourable as he currently has in Vienna: ‘Positions with a salary of 12,000 gulden are few and far between. Even I did not receive more in my early years as a director’. Mahler is well, he says, in spite of a frantic workload, though his wife and daughter are not in good health; he closes with a postscript asking that [Emil] Hertzka send the final amendments alongside the printed score of the Eighth, enquiring whether Mengelberg has agreed to a Frankfurt performance.

The land to which Mahler refers is presumably a plot in the Semmering, which he had recently purchased with the intention of building a house. The ‘newspaper hoax’ must relate to events at the Vienna Opera, who had recently appointed Hans Gregor to take up the position of director from March 1911 – Mahler’s feelings on Weingartner’s successor are quite clear. Bruno Walter, the German conductor and composer, had been with the Court Opera since 1901, after accepting an invitation from Mahler to join as his assistant; by November 1910, his contract was soon to expire and he did not wish to extend it, but he would eventually be persuaded with the offer of new and very favourable terms. Emil Freund, Mahler's lawyer and friend, had worked from the beginning on the publication and performances of the Eighth [see previous lot].

Published: Martner, no 439.

Artist:Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911)
Place of origin:Austria, USA
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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