GUSTAV MAHLER (3) VIENNA 1897-1907

When Mahler entered Vienna in 1897 it was for him a homecoming despite the
fact that not everybody had put out the flags for him. He moved quickly into
the Opera House which was not exactly handed over with vacant possession.
Until the official takeover in October he would have to work not so much
alongside but somewhat at a distance from Hans Richter. To begin with, he
held a joint post with Josef Helmesberger, son of his one time principal at the
Conservatory. Still the first thing new residents of a house have to do is to
have a good sweep out. Mahler was not just the stick waving man in the
orchestra pit.
All aspects of production came under his charge and
immediately under his own supervision. He replaced his baton with a rod of
iron. Latecomers were not allowed to enter until the end of the Act, whoever
they might be; houselights were to be lowered before the curtains opened;
Wagner was to be played in full and not truncated for the benefit of those who
were merely there to be seen but who could only take Wagner in thin slices;
various other technical improvements, a telephone for the conductor to speak
to backstage; the podium to be repositioned so that the conductor, who
hitherto conducted the singers on the stage with his back to the orchestra,
was now in front of the orchestra. He put a stop to orchestra members
sending deputies to rehearsals which invoked hostility from the players. This
was a bug bear elsewhere which Henry Woods Queens Hall suffered until the
practice was forbidden and a substantial group left in 1904 to found the
London Symphony Orchestra. Woe betide anyone who was late for rehearsal,
usually because they were still drinking up at the watering hole next door.
Mahler knew the score and was known to down baton and go in to order them
back.
Under Mahler, everyone was subject to the same regime. This included the big
stars. Mahler had been there before with Budapest. Now he looked for
principals who would fit in, no prima donnas. Yet there were famous names
like Anna von Mildenburg and Selma Kurz. Anna had been recruited to
Hamburg by Pollini and was a top stage performer as well as singer. She had
been chary of Mahler when she joined at Hamburg but it became one of the
steamiest of relationships he had and led to near scandal. Now that Mahler
was in charge at Vienna he was prepared to risk press rumours and bring in
Anna who was for him the greatest Isolde. Their relationship might have been
rekindled but back at home in his flat in Vienna was the biggest problem. His
sister Justine who had devoted herself to Mahler was consumed with jealousy
over his relationships. With Selma Kurz his relationship appears to have been
little more than a flirtation. She was the greatest mezzo of her day and famous
for the Selma trill. She performed the Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen and
Mahler must have been sorely tempted. However he was probably anxious to
avoid a repetition of laffaire Mildenberg and Justine playing gooseberry again.
Mahler had a thing for attractive female singers and easily succumbed.
Equally he could go off them just as quickly, particularly if they were to sing a
harsh or wrong note. This leads some commentators to suggest that Mahlers

quest of the opposite sex was one of an idealised musical perfection. Be that
as It may, it seems that when he did encounter the ideal who could sing the
right notes, it played havoc with his testosterone and his sense of touch.
The opening production for the new incumbent was Lohengrin which brought
the house down. The audience was on the watch for changes he would make
to the familiar score, excitement for many, protest from others but an overall
success with generally a positive response from the press. Vienna itself was
undergoing an artistic putsch at the time. In April 1897 at the same time as
Mahler had taken up his position at the Opera a breakaway movement across
the arts, the Vienna Secession, was setting itself up, an insurgency against the
establishment conservatoires, academies and galleries. It sought to modernise
a moribund Vienna and to seek to rank alongside Paris as a home for Art
Nouveau. Its members and followers included Klimt, Zemlinsky (both early
lovers of Alma Schindler), Schiele, Carl Moll (Alma Schindlers step father)
Kokoschka (a later lover of Alma following Mahlers death in 1911). A new
modernist group in music would follow on its fringes led by Arnold
Schoenberg, also a painter. The group consisting of Schoenberg, Alban Berg
and Anton Webern would admire Mahler but he was not a member. It
developed separately into atonalism and serial music in what became known
as the Second Viennese School. Another member of the Secession was the
architect and designer, Alfred Roller. He expressed ideas for staging Tristan
and Isolde in keeping with what Mahler was seeking to do in the Opera House.
Although he had had no theatrical experience he was engaged by Mahler to
design the sets and the lighting, novel, impressionist and magical. The stage
lighting was such that scenes could be changed without striking the scenery.
Rollers stage design was thus first employed for Viennas new production of
Tristan and Isolde with Mildenburg singing the role of Isolde in what was to be
one of the most celebrated productions anywhere.
After a year Mahler was well and truly entrenched at the Opera House, and
would over ten years direct over a thousand productions, the list of which is
far too extensive to reproduce here. He then turned his attention to the Vienna
Philharmonic Orchestra. They were the house orchestra at the opera. In the
pit, Mahler was completely in control of the players. In the concert hall they
metamorphosed into a bird of quite a different feather. There they were an
independent, self-governing orchestra who chose who conducted them and
who did not. Hans Richter had held absolute command and respect but now he
was leaving for Manchester and the Halle. The obvious choice for conductor
was on hand, Mahler. His first concert with them was Beethoven and Mozart.
The orchestra had its way of performing these works with their eyes closed.
Under Mahler horns, not French ones, became locked. On one occasion,
Mahler won the day after having rehearsed the opening phrases of
Beethovens fifth symphony over and over again until some members of the
orchestra were ready to walk out. In response Mahler told them to save their
wrath for the concert itself and then. That way they would find that they would
get the opening just right. From the first concert, with the Eroica Mahler had

touched up the score much to the dismay of the traditionalists. It caused a

furore in the press. (Microsoft Spellcheck, in its wisdom, is not conversant
with the title of Beethovens third symphony and suggests it should be
Erotica). For the next concert Mahler had a flyer placed on the seats to explain
that he was not rewriting Beethoven but that auditoria had changed and
orchestras contained more strings than in Beethovens day necessitating
doubling the winds and repointing up different parts to redress the balance,
and that Beethoven himself would have approved. This was the argument
used by Henry Wood when performing mammoth Messiahs - that is how
Handel would have wanted it had he had the resources to do it. Mahler in
comparison just adds re-enforcing touches to enhance. The opposite side of
the same coin was used by Roger Norrington and the period instrument
school from the 1980s. They argued that is not how Beethoven would have
wanted it. They just reversed the process. According to Mahler, what we hear
as traditional Beethoven (or whomsoever) does not have the sound and
balance originally intended by Beethoven. Mahler sought to correct this
because of the size and acoustic echo of the contemporary halls. According to
Norrington, what we hear as traditional Beethoven (or whomsoever) does not
have the sound and balance originally intended by Beethoven. To correct this
and assisted by the wonders of modern acoustics and/or the recording studio,
the authentic school go back to Beethoven basics like an art restorer
stripping off the layers of varnish to reveal the original. Mahlers relationship
with the Philharmonic did not last long. It was a tempestuous one made in hell
and if they were hard and uncooperative with him he was equally hard and
uncompromising with them. He wisely handed over the reins after suffering a
collapse following an uncomfortable bout of haemorrhoids, another pile to add
to his troubles.
More than ever Mahler needed his annual retreat to the lakes which, with his
workload and vexation, he needed for peace of mind, walking swimming and
composing. By 1899 he had replaced Steinbach and its little composing house
with a thermal resort at Autrasee. His annual holidays were accompanied by
Justine and Natalie Bauer-Lechner who had been a friend of Mahler from their
student days in Vienna and they had remained close for many years. At one
time close had meant contiguous as recorded by her in the biographical
accounts she was to write. Autrasee turned out to be cold and overrun with
gawping tourists. Anna von Mildenburger joined them. She found a suitable
position on the shore at Maiernigg where Mahler could build a villa and little
composing house. Not having written a symphony since his third he had
stalled in progressing with a fourth or rather in establishing an outline for it.
He still held in reserve A Childs View of Heaven, originally intended for the
third symphony but how and where to introduce it into the fourth? His
productive inspiration began to return. Eventually, "Das himmlische Leben
would be positioned as the final movement for the fourth, completed in 1900.
Its wide eyed innocence would dictate the mood and permeate all the
preceding movements leading to it. The fourth is given a tag of neo-classic by

Edward Seckerson. Of course this term has come to mean the much later
movement led by Stravinsky with works of old composers dressed u[ in fancy
dress and manicured with modern harmonies. What Seckerson has in mind is
nothing like this. He sees the reduction in scale and lightness of touch as
evoking the world of Haydn. After the first three gigantic symphonies of
Mahler this allusion to a past world bears comparison to Beethovens eighth
symphony (my little symphony in F) which was seen to harp back to Haydn
after the series of heroics which preceded it.
1901 would be his first summer at Maiernigg writing the fifth symphony, the
Drummer boy from his Wunderhorn cycle, the first three songs of his nascent
song cycle, Kindertotenlieder, songs on the death of children based on poems
of Ruckert as well as three other Ruckert songs. Ruckert had himself suffered
the loss of his child, as would happen later to Mahler with Putzi, his first child.
This concentration upon death became more and more a virtual obsession,
replacing the children story world of the wonderhorn. Even in the childlike
fourth symphony the second movement with its solo violin tuned up a tone
represents death walking in. The fifth symphony is in three parts travelling
from a funeral march, through what sounds like an improvisation for a scherzo
and the third part consisting of its famous Adagietto, followed by a Bach
influenced joyous (Mahler joyous?) rondo.
7th November 1901 was a date in Mahlers diary for a dinner party at the home
of some new friends. It turned out to be more significant than he ever would
have imagined. There the 41 year old Mahler was introduced to Alma Schindler,
a 22 year old music student who had written some songs. She was the
daughter of Emil Schindler, a celebrated landscape painter with a court
appointment who had died in 1892. Almas mother had remarried a pupil of
Schindler, Carl Moll who became Almas step father as well as being a founder
member and secretary of the Vienna Secession. In the presence of such an
eminent figure as Mahler one might have thought she would have been
overawed but not a bit of it. She was a pupil of Alexander Zemlinsky with
whom she was having a relationship. Zemlinsky had written some ballet music
which he had sent to Mahler a year previously and which he had never been
acknowledged. Alma immediately took up the cudgels accusing Mahler of
inexcusable rudeness. He put up his umbrella saying that the score was trash
to which she retorted that that was no excuse. Mahler was all admiration and
eventually attempted to make amends inviting her to a rehearsal the next day
provided he could walk her home. She refused and he was more even more
captivated. That was the start of a singular relationship. She was still in love
with Zemlinsky but was more and more drawn to Mahler. What was quite odd,
if not co-incidental, was that both Zemlinsky and Mahler were Jewish born
whilst the Schindlers were social climbers up the bourgeois ladder. If Alma
had had any misgivings about his roots she was not to be put off. Mahler
pressed her until she could resist no longer and they agreed to marry.
Before they did so, Mahler set out his position quite clearly in a letter he wrote
to her as to what he saw should be his wifes duties. She must accept that he

should be able to live several rooms away from her. She should share his
company only at an agreed time; she should be perfectly groomed and well
dressed. Even worse, he required her to give up composing. Talk about
chauvinism! You might conclude she should have told him there and then to
take his business elsewhere. Whatever had happened to the feisty self assured
girl with whom he had crossed swords at that dinner party? Yet she agreed.
Why? One reason only. She was already pregnant and even a liberated girl like
Alma could not have suffered the stigma of being a single parent mum in the
early 1900s. She therefore became his wife and his amanuensis. That at any
rate would save the cost of a copyist. Alma, Oh What A Gal is worth a
biographical sketch of its own. Alas there is not the room in this article.
Contrary to some belief, Alma was not Jewish. Her family were amongst the
anti-Semites. Her step father, Carl Moll, was even more virulent although this
aspect was curtailed during the time Mahler was his step son-in-law.. Much
later he would join the Nazi party and when the Russians entered Vienna at
the end of the second world war, Moll was to take his own life. As to Alma, she
had mixed with various characters from the Vienna Secession, would go to
bed with at least a good number of them, geniuses in the contemporary art
world which included a large Jewish contingent. Little wonder she became
attracted to those she would meet such as Klimt, Zemlinsky, Mahler and later
on Kokoschka and Werfel, all Jewish by birth. I have omitted Walter Gropius,
architect and designer of the Bauhaus whom Alma described as the most
Aryan of the lot whilst the others were little Jews, like Mahler.
Prior to meeting Alma, Mahler had encountered difficulties with Justi, his sister
and house keeper. She was insanely jealous of each successive lady friend he
brought home and for whom she made life difficult. She had probably seen her
position in his household being undermined by any possible Frau Mahler. Yet
this was not the case with Alma whom she welcomed. All became revealed the
day after Gustav and Alma were married. Unbeknown to Mahler, Justine had
her own fish to fry. She had been secretly engaged to Arnold Ros, the concert
master (leader) of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra from 1888 to 1938 and
also founder of the Ros Quartet as well as a talented concerto soloist to boot.
He was Jewish and born in Rumania. Mahler was the one to be caught out by
this. The day after Mahlers wedding to Alma, Arnold and Justine themselves
got married. Mahler was frequently at odds with the Vienna Philharmonic and
the idea that their very leader would become his brother-in-law would have
been seen by him as an incursion too far.
Life for the newly wed Mahlers was happy and Maria, endearingly called Putzi,
got added. Flor the next five years life continued with much the same routine.
For him, working all hours racking up an enormous number of operas, over a
hundred per year. For them, three months each year first at Maiernigg, he
composing for six hours each morning and then rowing, cycling or climbing
whilst she wrote up the scores from the manuscripts he had produced that
morning, a task she saw as a partnership venture starting with No 5. Now
number six was to follow which he originally called The Tragic. The second

subject of the first movement he called his Alma theme. This symphony is
in four movements in established classical form. Apart from the Alma theme
which glows, all other themes are beset by a tragic turn. Its very extended last
movement was beset with three hammer blows of fate for which a lot of
experimentation was undergone to find the right wooden thudding sound. On
the orchestral platform there are various designs including a hammer with a
long wieldy handle brought to bear down on a stump of wood. Personally, I
think the resonance of the bass drum gives a better result. Later Mahler in a fit
of superstition regarded three hammer, or more correctly sledgehammer,
blows, as a presage of impending death and cut out the third at the beginning
of the coda. Some conductors honour that direction but frankly I think that
Mahlers musical instincts were for three blows and that one should not
kowtow to his superstition. It cant do him any harm now. Not only did Mahler
complete his sixth symphony that summer but he also wrote two movements
of his seventh symphony, each to be called nachtmusik. Night music but not
nocturnes. That summer of 1904 had also seen the completion of
Kindertotenlieder and the birth of their second daughter, Anna. During the
pregnancy Mahler was submersed in the theme of child death which Alma
found worryingly disturbing, particularly at a time when she was about to
deliver forth.
In this period of five years there would be a growing number of performances
of his own music taking place. It is difficult in a sketch such as this to keep
track of when each composition and first performance took place. Suffice it
for present purposes to point out that first performances would usually take at
least two years following creation. Up till now he was still as far as the public
was concerned first and foremost a conductor. Few would have been aware,
let alone familiar with his compositions. On the whole audiences are
suspicious of conductors who turn their hand to composition (Furtwangler or
Klemperer). For some, conducting is used as a means of getting better
appreciated as a composer. With six symphonies under his belt there were
that many more Mahler performances and by now with earlier works such as
his first and second symphonies entering the general repertoire. Mahler
avoided having first performances taking place at Vienna where he had
enough opposition to keep him going. These were taking place in other cities,
Cologne, Essen and Munich. Amsterdam in particular had taken to Mahler. The
Concertgebouw established a tradition for the music of Mahler under Willem
Mengelberg. His reputation was blemished after forty years in the post.
During World War II, he was accused for having welcomed the Nazi invasion
and having Jewish members of the orchestra expelled. After liberation he was
dismissed in disgrace. More recently voices have been raised which question
this. The Dutch Mahler tradition however did continue under Eduard van
Beinum and particularly so under Bernard Haitink. Back to the mid-1900s
Mahlers reputation as a composer was growing apace with Mahler ensuring
where possible that he conducted at each premier to make sure his personal
interpretation was heard.

The Seventh symphony with its two nocturnes from the previous summer was
virtually completed in 1905 and scored in 1906. However, it did not get its
premiere until September 1908, in Prague with the Czech Philharmonic, at a
festival marking the Diamond Jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph. It is seen as
the strangest of the cycle, the last in his middle period series of purely
orchestral symphonies. Its order of composition with its two nocturnes in the
middle might construe it as nocturnes in search of a symphony. The last
movement is Jubilation OTT, a kind of Crown Imperial, Hapsburg style. The
opening could have been written by William Walton
As soon as Mahler started his holidays for 1906 I am sure I am losing you
here he had an idea for a new symphony, his eighth. His inspiration was
white hot and he had completed it in eight weeks. This was no ordinary
symphony no Mahler symphony could be described as such but this was
as big, maniacal some might say, as had ever been conceived. It was a choral
symphony. Well we all know that Beethoven had done that back in 1821 but
this went further than Beethoven. All its six movements set in two parts were
choral, the first fully choral symphony. In this he beat Vaughan Williams to it
by three years. VW completed A Sea Symphony, his number one in 1909
although he had started it in 1903. The personnel for the Mahler 8 is
stupendous. It is known as The Symphony of a Thousand although that
name was not bestowed upon it by Mahler. It contains eight solo singers,
childrens choir, chorus and an extended orchestra including a guitar and
mandolin. The shorter first part contains a setting of the tenth century hymn
Veni Creatur Spiritus. The longer second part is a setting of the last part of
Goethes Faust. Both parts are based on love and redemption. He dedicated
the work to Alma
Over this period, 1906/7 storm clouds were rising. Let us go back to the sixth
symphony with those three tragic hammer blows in the finale. Mahler, as his
superstitions would predict, would fall prey to all three. The first hammer blow
was the termination of his Vienna contract where the politics of the opera
house and intrigue were hotting up. Mahlers relations with the orchestra were
no better. Ticket sales were down and productions were going over estimate.
Blame for this was levelled more at Roller for his extravagant sets and art
nouveau designs. Mahler however stood loyal to his friend which did not help
his own stance. The support he had had from Prince Montenuovo, the Court
Chamberlain, was fast slipping. His growing success as a composer and the
resultant growing number of performances which he himself was invariably
directing were seized upon by his critics in voicing their dissatisfaction. It had
become a case that every conductor has his day and after ten years it was time
to move on. Mahler sensed this and was getting Plan B ready. He had received
approaches to direct for two seasons at the Met at New York with mouth
watering financial inducements ($20,000 for four months, not bad for 1907) He
had already long before proved that he was a dab hand when it came to
negotiating his own business and he had no need for an agent. In the end in
March 1907 terms were agreed for Mahler to stand down from Autumn 1907

and with a suitable sum from Vienna to keep him going into the bargain. (cf
Jose Mourhino). He was also astute enough to negotiate what nobody else had
done. Not only would he be paid a pension by Vienna but that it would
continue to be paid to his widow after his death. Seeing that Alma would
outlive him by 53 years that wasnt a bad deal
As to Mahlers health, he had suffered for some time from constant infected
throats and also from haemorrhoids. Otherwise though he appeared physically
fit, spending his holidays, when not composing, walking, swimming, climbing
and cycling. In January of 1907, during his compromising with Vienna and
bargaining with New York, he consulted his family doctor in Vienna who
discovered a slight valvular defect to the heart. What was not appreciated by
his doctor was that the continued throat ailments were causing the heart
condition itself. He recommended that Mahler should avoid fatigue but
otherwise to carry on as normal. The two were contradictory. Mahlers rostrum
lifestyle, rehearsals in the day and opera performances every night when he
was not otherwise travelling to conduct one of his marathon symphonies were
hardly the prescription to avoid fatigue. And there would follow two seasons in
New York now that he had the contract for that stitched up.
He was not far off from taking his last curtain call at Vienna when he took his
summer holiday for 1907. That was when the second hammer blow took place.
Three days after their arrival, his older daughter, Maria (Putzi), suddenly went
down with diphtheria and scarlet fever and died after two weeks of suffering.
This was the kindertoten experience that Mahler had written about and the
result which Alma had superstitiously dreaded. Both parents were pole axed
and Alma was in a state of breakdown, needing medical attention. Their family
doctor, having examined her, then gave Mahler a routine check over. This
resulted in the third hammer blow. The lesion, detected six months earlier, had
worsened and after specialist investigation it was made clear that Mahlers
days were numbered and that he needed rest if he were to stay alive. He and
Alma found some rest at Schluderbach, an Austrian resort. Whilst there
Mahler read the Chinese Flute, an anthology of Chinese poems which a friend
had recommended could be set to music. During those weeks he began
working on them. They would later evolve into Das Lied von Der Erde
On 15 October he conducted his last opera at Vienna, Fidelio, which was not
well attended. He immediately left on a concert trip to Russia and it was
between two concerts at St Petersburg that he visited Helsinki and had his
famous meeting with Sibelius. The two men seemed to have an admiration for
each other even if they did not actually understand what the other was saying.
That admiration did not extend to their music on which they had diametrically
opposite views. For Sibelius, the symphony had to have strictness and style.
For Mahler The symphony must be like the world. It must embrace
everything. We do not know exactly what music of Sibelius Mahler heard but
he summed it up as hackneyed clichs. If we take a closer examination, the
first performance of Sibeliuss third symphony took place conducted by the
composer, on 25 September 1907, less than three weeks before Mahlers

Fidelio at Vienna. It is inconceivable that Mahler would have heard it played.

This was the first of the contracted down symphonies of Sibelius with
strictness and style. His first and second symphonies are bigger, more
romantic works which owe much to Tchaikovsky which Mahler may have
known. To-day, we see Sibelius looking back from after he had written his
whole canon of seven (eight counting Kullervo) but Mahler would not have had
such a perspective. Where I see the two meeting in some imaginary spiritual
no mans land ought to be in 1911, not 1907. That year Sibelius, suffering from
a polyp in the throat and which he feared was cancerous and the end nigh,
wrote his most contracted symphony yet, his fourth. That same year Mahler,
under a death sentence with throat infection, was in the course of writing his
unfinished tenth. Both were challenging the limits. Sibelius with the use of the
tritone (musical diabolus) and showing signs of progressive tonality. Mahler
stretching tonality as far as he could. Both were in despair and displaying
crisis, at times in the same mood as each other. Listen and compare the mood
of the opening of the Sibelius and then the opening of the last movement of
the Mahler tenth. Different and yet each searching for a new path, they were
pursuing similar aims without knowing it. Mahler died within months. Sibelius
lived on for another 46 years!
Mahler returned to Vienna for his last concert performance on 24 November
2007 when he conducted his second symphony, the Resurrection, to his loyal
audience. Mahler was recalled to the platform thirty times to end ten triumphal
years. Two weeks later at the railway station some two hundred supporters
including Bruno Walter Roller, Klimt, Schoenberg and Zemlinsky came to wave
Mahler off, a wayfarer again on the first part of his journey to New York.
.