Gustav Mahler--Richard Strauss: Correspondence 1888-1911 (Paperback)

~ (Author), Richard Strauss (Author), Herta Blaukopf (Editor), Edmund Jephcott (Translator) "Since my return to Munich is likely to be seriously delayed, would you be kind enough to let me know what steps I should take..." (more)
Key Phrases: vocal score, programme music, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Alma Mahler (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss came to know one another as young conductors in Leipzig in 1887. From then until Mahler's death in 1911—the year of the first performance of Der Rosenkavalier—they kept in touch. Mahler himself described their relationship as that of two miners tunneling from opposite directions with the hope of eventually meeting.

This first publication of their correspondence, which includes twenty-five previously unknown Strauss letters, offers a portrait of two men who were as antithetical in their musical means and goals as in their temperaments and personalities, but who exercised a strong fascination for one another. These sixty-three letters show both composers advancing in their careers as they battled against adverse conditions in the musical world at the turn of the century. They present Mahler's energetic support of Strauss's Symphonia Domestica, which Mahler conducted in 1904 and, in turn, Strauss's championing of Mahler's music, especially the Second and Third Symphonies.

The correspondence is fully annotated and is supplemented with a major essay by Herta Blaukopf.

"Unfailingly absorbing. . . . An indispensable addition to the literature on these composers."—Norman Del Mar, Times Literary Supplement

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 172 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (June 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226057682
• ISBN-13: 978-0226057682
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #843,146 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Odd Couple: Mahler and Strauss, December 1, 2007

By	Mr John Haueisen (WORTHINGTON, OHIO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Herta Blaukopf presents here the story of one of the oddest "couples" in music history: Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss.
Through her own commentary, using nearly all the known letters exchanged between Mahler and Strauss, Blaukopf helps readers come to a better understanding of what kept these two giants of music together--and what kept them apart.

Over a major span of their productive years, they maintained a correspondence, and frequently got together with friends and family, discussing music and how to further each other's careers. Yet these two titans never seemed to really understand each other.

Strauss, the genius of tone poems and sound painting, seemed never to run out of new ideas of music that would "sell." Strauss wrote because he COULD! (and he could make a lot of money at it!)

Mahler had a boundless reservoir of passion for Nature, and a depth of desire to understand the causes and reasons for human suffering. Mahler wrote, because he HAD TO! He was puzzled by those who could not understand the depth of suffering in his music.

After just such a moment of bewilderment, Mahler asks himself, "Are people made of different stuff than I?" Upon reading this, Strauss answers Mahler's heart-wrenching question, with a single word: "Yes."

Many good books have been written about Mahler and Strauss. This one lets you read their own thoughts in their own words, and it also includes the words of their family and associates to let readers judge for themselves.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine pairing of letters and explanatory essay, April 16, 2007

By	Doug - Haydn Fan (California) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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An excellent work, and an indispensible one to both Mahlerites, and those few of us who still consider Strauss his equal. This relatively slim volume offers an extraordinary, privileged look at the relationship of the two great composers, their professional careers as major conductors, and their travails as avant garde composers. Strauss comes across very handsomely in this work, and his remarkable personal success is a running leitmotif set against Mahler's endless struggle for recognition. The letters are marvelously amplified and filled out by Herta Blaukopf's model essay - a long full historical overview of the correspondence, complete with gossipy wives and Mahler's insecurities and deep-seated neuroses.
It is impossible not to be reminded, when reading of Mahler and Alma, of an earlier musical couple, Clara and Robert Schumann. Both couples were highly critical of another major competing musical figure, with the Schumanns it was Liszt. The Mahlers kept their thoughts largely to themselves, and they seem constantly unable to resist the bait to their egos of Strauss' public glory. It eats at them and they let themselves fall prey to petty annoyances and imagined slights. Yet both Liszt and Strauss proved fair-minded, and in the case of Liszt, really quite magnanimous. Both couples also seem touched with too much zealotry, a sort of missionary calling of the right way, their way, and I find that most disquieting. In the case of the Mahlers the condition shows readily enough in these letters and the story documented by the attached essay. One comes away with a higher regard for Strauss the man, and certain private doubts about Mahler and especially Alma largely confirmed.