The new Universal Edition Study Score Series now contains twelve newly prepared editions of Mahler works. In addition, eight of the works are also available in our new bound Conductor’s Scores Series.

All editions have been produced based on the current state of research and are presented in clear and legible format.

The following scores are available:

Symphony No. 1
(study score / conductor’s score)
Symphony No. 2 (available in spring 2011)
Symphony Nr. 3 (study score / conductor’s score)
Symphony Nr. 4 (study score / conductor’s score)
Symphony Nr. 8 (study score / conductor’s score)
Das Lied von der Erde (conductor’s score)
Symphony Nr. 9 (study score / conductor’s score)
Adagio from Symphony No. 10 (study score / conductor’s score)
Des Knaben Wunderhorn Vol. 1 (study score)
Des Knaben Wunderhorn Vol. 2 (study score)
Kindertotenlieder (study score)
Rückertlieder (study score)

Interview language: Spanish

Transcript of full interview available soon.

“Life, death. Love, no love. Hope, no hope.”

Do you remember when you heard Mahler’s music for the first time.

Dudamel: This was years ago. It is funny how I got to know Mahler’s music. My father played the trombone in a Salsa group and he was also playing with an orchestra. I remember finding the trombone part of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 for the third trombone. I recall taking my father’s trombone and trying to play [imitates a trombone]… I was maybe 11 or 12 years old at the time, and I was playing the violin. But I remember a recording of the Symphony No. 1, I received it as a gift from an uncle. This was the first piece by Mahler that I ever listened to. It was a very special experience, because, even though I found it difficult to understand at the beginning, later when I started conducting, it was the first big piece that I conducted. It was amazing, because this was maybe three or four years later. I was 16 when I had that first experience with a Mahler symphony. So this was how I got into Mahler, listening to the orchestra playing Mahler in my home town, but especially through that recording that I received from an uncle. It was very special.

(more…)

The Doelen Concert Hall in Rotterdam has told us about their forthcoming Mahler concerts. They are:

30 September 2010
01 October 2010
02 October 2010
Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest
Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Karen Cargill, alto
Het Nederlands Concertkoor
Roder Jongenskoor
Programme:
Mahler Symphony No. 3

25 november 2010
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Jukka-Pekka Saraste
Gal James, soprano
Programme:
R. Strauss Vier letzte Lieder
Mahler Symfonie nr.9

(more…)

“Mahlers first symphony is the great emotion of my youth!”

Do you remember the first time you heard Gustav Mahler’s music?

Chailly: The first time, yes, very clearly: it was in the very early 1960s in Rome, at the Auditorium del Foro Italico with the RAI-Rome orchestra. I attended a rehearsal of the Symphony No. 1, conducted by Zubin Mehta, who was very young at that time. I was there because my father was working in the programming of the classical music at RAI-Rome, and he had a meeting that day. He couldn’t stay with me, he left me completely alone in the last row of the hall of the parquet, of the parterre, and he said: “Stay there for one hour and just don’t move, don’t talk, don’t do anything!” And of course, when I heard the power of the music, of this symphony – I would only later discover that it was Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 – it left me with this feeling of complete standstill. I didn’t know what to do, how to react … Whether to cry, to shout, or to be overwhelmed by emotions … I was very, very young at that time – eight or nine years old. It is not only the great power of Mahler’s music, but it is also the great emotion of my youth.

(more…)

Deutsche Grammophon and Decca have launched a new website celebrating Mahler’s 150th birthday and giving customers the opportunity of voting for their favourite Mahler recordings. These will be released this autumn in a new box set.

They have also made out-of-print recordings available, which you can now listen to online.

On the occasion of Mahler’s 150th birthday a Gustav Mahler anthology has now been published in Italian. Thanks to the comments of those who admired and respected him, the anthology plays a valuable role in keeping his spirit alive.

Il mio tempo verrà

The figures quoted include musicologists, musicians, authors and great thinkers, all of them united by their deep passion for and their profound knowledge of Mahler.

Ernst Bloch, Richard Strauss, Arthur Schnitzler, Thomas Mann, Arnold Schönberg, Alma Mahler, Theodor W. Adorno, Glenn Gould, Leonard Bernstein, Daniel Barenboim and Claudia Abbado are just some of the great names selected by Gastón Fournier-Facio, the artistic coordinator of the Teatro alla Scala; names that contribute to creating a living image of the master and a careful analysis of his works.

Gustav Mahler. Il mio tempo verrà
La sua musica raccontata da critici, scrittori e interpreti 1901-2010
A cura di Gastón Fournier-Facio

Norman Lebrecht’s BBC Radio 3 broadcast “In Search of Mahler” can be heard online for the next seven days.

From the BBC Website:

“In the year of the 150th anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s birth, Norman Lebrecht travels in the footsteps of the composer in search of those whose lives have been touched and changed by his music.”

Listen here

Gustav Mahler’s 8th Symphony, the “Symphony of a Thousand”, opens the 2010 BBC Proms tonight. Jiří Bělohlávek conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the joint forces of six choirs.

The concert will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 at 20:00 British Summer Time (21:00 in Paris). Listen online.

See all Mahler concerts at this year’s Proms.

See also: Mahler’s total eclipse of the heart (Tom Service, The Guardian)

“Conducting Mahler the rubato is essential”

Maestro Honeck, the first question is always the same – do you remember when you heard the music of Gustav Mahler for the first time?

Honeck: I remember it very well. I was a member of the Austrian Youth Orchestra and we went to Berlin to participate in the Karajan Competition. Several youth orchestras from all over Europe were taking part and I heard the German Youth Orchestra ‘Junge Deutsche Philharmonie’ performing Mahler’s 1st Symphony. I was extremely impressed right away, not only by the big sound – other symphonies also have a big sound – but what impressed me very much was the way Mahler treated the darkness and also the special meaning of his music, for example in the third movement. It might have something to do with my own experience because I lost my mother. She was the mother of nine children. I took part in the funeral, of course, and the way this funeral was conducted reminded me a little bit of this music. It might have been connected to this. I must have been 13 or 14 years old at the time and it was remarkable for me. It was probably one of the most important moments for me. I was almost shocked that this can happen with music, that it came into my life and into my heart. Since then, Mahler has been a part of my inner heart.

(more…)