Gustav Mahler: The Wunderhorn Years. Chronicles and Commentaries

A work of painstaking and imaginative scholarship presented in eminently readable language. Musical Quarterly Mitchell has amassed and processed an imposing amount of material, most of it new... It includes a section on Mahler and Freud, discusses Bach's influence on Mahler, and reproduces contemporary criticism... Invaluable for Mahler scholars and lovers. Economist Donald Mitchell'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 at this 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, Mahler's addiction to the E flat clarinet, and the influence of Bach on Mahler's later masterpieces. Donald Mitchell was founder Prefessor of Music at the University of Sussex. He is currently Visiting Professor at Sussex and York, and formerly at King's College, London.

CONTENIDO:

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements (2005)
Preface and acknowledgements
Preface (1995)
Preface (2005): History, and its influence on the history of Mahler reception in the twentieth century

Part I
I. Short list of works and dates of composition
II. Mahler: Song-Cycle and Symphony
Notes to part I

Part II
I. The early works (supplementary notes)
II. Mahler and Freud
Notes to part II

Part III
I. Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
II. Lieder und Gesänge ['aus der Jugendzeit']; the Gesellen songs continued
III. The Chronology of the Wunderhorn Songs
IV. The Chronology of Symphonies I-III
Notes to part III
IV.
I. The Wunferhorn Symphonies, particularly the Third and Fourth
II. Influences and anticipations
Notes to part IV
Appendices