From: dbarker@spang.Camosun.BC.CA (Deryk Barker)
Subject: Re: Dresden was Re: One-work-composers
Organization: Camosun College, Victoria B.C, Canada
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 00:15:11 GMT

roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
: In article <1992Dec18.004920.2364@spang.Camosun.BC.CA> dbarker@spang.Camosun.BC.CA (Deryk Barker) writes:
: >roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
: >: >In article <1992Dec14.173939.6318@spang.Camosun.BC.CA> dbarker@spang.Camosun.BC.CA (Deryk Barker) writes:
: >: >>written probably at least 4 before that. The conductor Willem
: >: >>Mengelberg recalled an all night session spent at the house of the
: >: >>Weber family (descendants of the composer) in - perhaps - the 1920s,
: >: >>playing through the manuscripts of 4 unknown Mahler symphonies which
: >: >>he had entrusted to Baroness von Weber. As the family lived in Dresden
: >: >>it is unlikely that the manuscripts survived......
: 
: >: I'd just like to point out that this is a non-sequitur.  Contrary
: >: to popular image, Dresden as a whole was not leveled -- only the 
: >: central area and a few other areas.  Many residential areas, including some
: >: where nobility might have lived, were untouched.  The Landesbibliothek,
: >: among other things, remained intact (thank heavens!).
: 
: >: Besides, great treasures such as those scores, if they existed, would
: >: probably have been evacuated.
: 
: >I'm relieved to hear it - or will be if they ever come to light. Can
: >you suggest any reason why, if they do still exist, they wouldn't have
: >turned up in the past few years, especially given the tremendous
: >interest - not to say money - they would surely attract?
: 
: Well, for one thing, I wonder whether they exist.  What does LaGrange
: have to say about Mengelberg's memories?  How would Mahler have 
: gotten four symphonies onto paper without mentioning them in a 
: letter?  

'...it seem certain that Mahler's first published symphony - No.1 in D
- cannot have been the first that  he composed. Memories have survived
of a symphony being rehearsed by the students' orchestra of the Vienna
Conservatoire,  while Mahler himself  was still   a  student there; of
three movements  of a  youthful symphony  in A  minor (the finale  was
apparently complete in the   young  composer's  head, but  was   never
committed to paper); of an early  "Nordic" symphony; and of "two other
symphonies".  It was long assumed  that these and  any other symphonic
products of Mahler's  teens in  the 1870s  were destroyed  by him; but
there is reason to believe that  some  of them, at least, survived his
death in 1911.

'In 1938,  the  distinguished Mahler biographer  Paul  Stefan, who had
known the composer, wrote an article  for the magazine Musical America
(issue  of April 10). In  this he stated that  the great conductor and
Mahler protege Willem Mengelberg  had told him  that he has discovered
the manuscripts of "four complete symphonies of Gustav Mahler's youth"
in the archives of the Weber family in Dresden (Mahler was on intimate
terms with  the   Webers  during the  years 1886-8);  and  that he had
actually  played  them  over at the piano  with  the  composer Max von
Schillings during an all night session.  Stefan described all  this as
having happened "some time ago" -  it must  have been before 1933, the
years in  which  von Schillings died  - but  nothing further  has been
heard of these symphonies. Stefan died in 1943, and Mengelberg in 1951
- both  before the sudden  reawakening of interest   in Mahler in  the
fifties -  and recent searching  has   so   far failed  to  reveal the
whereabouts of the manuscripts in  a much changed  postwar Germany. It
may be that they  were destroyed by  the then Baroness  von Weber (who
has also since died), as according  to Stefan  she had promised Mahler
to prevent them from ever being performed.'

From the liner  notes to Solti's  (far better)  1964 Mahler 1 (LSO) by
Deryck Cooke - who knew a thing or three about GM.

I guess the Baroness could have destoryed them, but there seems little
doubt they they did exist.

--
Real:  Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept., Camosun College, Victoria B.C.
Email: (dbarker@spang.camosun.bc.ca)
Phone: +1 604 370 4452