Mahler and ‘The Newspaper Company’: A Newly Discovered Contract

Abstract

In the early 1890s Mahler’s attempts to interest the German music publisher, B. Schott’s Söhne, in his large-scale works proved fruitless and the owner, Dr Ludwig Strecker, was content to publish a collection of songs, the 14 Lieder und Gesänge. Even for a major firm, with ample opportunity to use income from popular works to cross-subsidize more costly and risky ventures, the publication of new, innovative symphonies was unattractive. For Mahler one temporary solution emerged unexpectedly thanks to two Hamburg patrons who funded both the performance and publication of his Second Symphony.However, this was hardly a satisfactory arrangement, as no orchestral parts were printed, and it was only thanks to the intervention of an old friend, Guido Adler, that Mahler finally saw his first four symphonies, Das klagende Lied and the Wunderhorn songs, published in practical and performable editions. The firm that undertook this large-scale project was not primarily a music publisher at all, but a printing company, the Erste Wiener Zeitungs Gesellschaft, and until recently the details of its agreement with Mahler were unknown. With the discovery in 2014 of a manuscript draft of the firm’s contract with Mahler this important step in the dissemination of Mahler’s music can be better understood.The article presents a transcription and translation of the draft contract, and a commentary, drawing on other published and unpublished primary sources, that seeks to set the document in the wider contexts of the history of music publishing in Vienna and of the Erste Wiener Zeitungs Gesellschaft in particular, Austrian copyright legislation, and the publication of Mahler’s music.