No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
It was at the end of a pre-war summer holiday in and around Munich—on September 12th, 1910, to be precise—after the Oberammergau Passion Play and the customary feast of Beethoven, Mozart and Wagner, that I first heard a symphony by Gustav Mahler. The concert had not been included in our pre-arranged programme, for, although my companion had heard Mahler conduct Tristan in London many years before, his own music was quite unknown to us, and we did not realise how important an event in the musical life of Europe was the first performance, conducted by himself, of his Eighth Symphony. We were persuaded by a Bavarian acquaintance to prolong our stay for a few days in order to be present at what we were assured would be a memorable occasion, and we were rewarded by hearing a work and a performance (or rather two performances, for the Symphony was played on two successive evenings, and we seized the opportunity of hearing it a second time) which made an unforgettable impression. Performances such as those two were destined never to bq heard again, for Mahler died a few months later, and no other conductor’s interpretation could quite equal his own, but the work remains, and has aroused enthusiasm in many countries. Now at last it is finding its way to England, and is to be performed at the Queen’s Hall, London, on April 12th next. Mahler’s work has been so much neglected in this country that the occasion seems fitting for a slight account of his life and work, more especially as the Eighth Symphony gives final and triumphant expression to ideas that are gradually taking form and developing through his earlier works.
1 To the best of my knowledge only three of his symphonies have been given in London; the First and Fourth, at Queen's Hall Promenade Concerts in 1903 and 1905 respectively, and the Seventh at a Queen's Hall Symphony Concert in January, 1913. His great posthumous song-cycle, ‘Das Lied von der Erde, was given at Queen's Hall in January, 1914. Some of his songs are occasionally heard at concerts. Of performances in the provinces I cannot speak, but I believe the First Symphony was given in Manchester in 1911.
2 Performed with orchestral accompaniment at Queen's Hall in November, 1927. It has also been sung several times in London with piano accompaniment.
3 Richard Specht, Gustav Mahler, p. 162.
4 Specht, op. cit., p. 39.
5 Was mir die Blumen erzählen, etc.
6 ‘Father, look on my wounds, let no man be lost.’
7 At the Mahler Memorial Festival at Mannheim, May 10th and 11th, 1912. It was there, too, that I heard the Eighth Symphony for the third, and ‘Das Lied von der Erde’ for the first, time.
8 These have occasionally been sung in London.
9 H. Leichtentritt.
10 ‘So is it almighty love, that forms all and protects all.’
You have
Access