Gustav Mahler’s correspondence, comprising approximately 5,000 letters, is one of the more extensive collections of letters written by composers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition to family correspondence and exchanges with friends, artists, publishers, directors, and institutions, Mahler’s correspondence also includes intellectual interactions with other composers, such as Richard Strauss, and conductors, such as Felix Weingartner. This resulting network of addressees and letter authors places Mahler within his historical context of influence and reveals both his social and artistic position as well as its period-specific variability. Furthermore, the quantity and content of the letters characterize Mahler as an individual in a kind of syncrisis, balancing the composer’s self-portrayal with the external perception by his contemporaries.
It is also noteworthy that Mahler’s letters partially document the genesis of his works and his struggle for a (final) work form, as well as offering insights into rehearsals for performances of both his own and other composers’ works. Surprisingly, a complete overview of Mahler’s letters—as provided by a historical-critical edition—is still lacking, meaning that corpus-based questions regarding historical contextualization or network analysis can only be inadequately addressed using existing partial editions. The project’s goal, therefore, is to record and index all of Mahler’s letters that have been published in print to date, as well as the available answers. For this purpose, each letter will be documented with pertinent metadata (such as sender, recipient, date, and letter incipit), along with references to preceding and subsequent correspondence, the current location of the letter, and the bibliographic reference to the corresponding partial edition. The project results will be made available in an online database.
Gubsch, C. (Speaker) & Quass, R. ((Co-)Author)
