Gustav Mahler : the Wunderhorn years : chronicles and commentaries / Donald Mitchell.
| Author/creator | Mitchell, Donald |
| Format | Book |
| Publication Info | Woodbridge : Boydell Press, 2005. |
| Description | viii, 515 pages, 4 unnumbered pages of plates : facsimiles, music ; 24 cm |
| Subjects |
| Contents | History, and its influence on the history of Mahler reception in the twentieth century -- Part one. Short list of works and dates of composition ; Mahler: song-cycle and symphony -- Part II. The early works (supplementary notes) ; Mahler and Freud -- Part III. Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen ; Lieder und Gesange ('aus der Jugendzeit'); the Gesellen songs continued ; The chronology of the Wunderhorn songs ; The chronology of symphonies I-III -- Part IV. The Wunderhorn symphonies, particularly the third and fourth ; Influences and anticipations -- Appendies. A letter to Fraulein Tolney-Witt ; Obituaries ; The text of Klopstock's 'Auferstehung' ; Mahler's edition of Mozart's Figaro (1906) ; The MS voice an piano versions of Mahler's Wunderhorn songs ; The 'Drum prelude' (original version) to the scherzo of the second symphony ; Mahler's own metronome marks in symphony II ; Hanslick on the 'Wunderhorn' songs (1900). |
| Abstract | The author's second book on the life and work of Gustav Mahler focuses principally on Mahler's first settings of Wunderhorn texts, volumes I and II of the Lieder und Gesaenge; his first song-cycle, the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen; and the later orchestral settings of Wunderhorn poems. The central section of the book explores the extraordinary and often eccentric chronology of the First, Second and Third Symphonies' composition, an often minute exploration which reveals the interpenetration of song and symphony in this period of Mahler's art, emphasizes the significance for these works of imagery drawn from the Wunderhorn anthology, and calls attention to the ambiguous position occupied by much of Mahler's music atthis time, suspended as it was between the rival claims - and forms - of symphony and symphonic poem. The final section of the book not only looks at the Fourth Symphony as the final, perhaps most perfect, flowering of Mahler's Wunderhorn symphonies, but also investigates such fascinating topics as the relationship between Mahler and Berlioz, and the influence of Bach on Mahler's later masterpieces. This new edition of the book offers an entirely new preface, in which Mitchell gives a unique account of the influence of politics, nationalism and fascism on the reception and rejection of Mahler's music, after the composer's death until the Mahler Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s. It also includes extensive corrigenda and amplifying addenda, making it clear that the Wunderhorn influence persisted beyond the end of the period during which the Wunderhorn anthology was a constant sourceof inspiration. It is completed by an international bibliography which documents chronologically the reception and study of his music both in the past, and the prodigiously different circumstances of the present. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. |
| ISBN | 1843830035 |