Autograph letter signed (Gustav Mahler’) to [C.M.] Schröder (‘Sehr geehrter Herr!‘), [Vienna, 1 October 1907]

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Autograph letter signed (Gustav Mahler’) to [C.M.] Schröder (‘Sehr geehrter Herr!‘), [Vienna, 1 October 1907]
In German. Four pages, 212 x 140mm, bifolium, addressed to Schröder as ‘Piano Manufacturer to the Court and Concert Bureau, St. Petersburg’, autograph emendations and cancellations in ink and, twice, in pencil, date annotated in pencil in another hand. Provenance: Sotheby's New York, 22 May 1985, lot 340.

Mahler reneges on a contract to conduct concerts in Russia, pleading ill health: an unpublished letter to the St Petersburg impresario and piano-maker C.M. Schröder. Mahler explains that it will not be possible for him to conduct concerts in Russian between 15 October and 15 November because his plans have changed. He was due to have left his position with the Vienna Opera by this time but the ‘highest administrative office at the Court’ [?Prince Montenuovo] has bid him remain in post until 1 January [1908], so he must be in Vienna until the end of the year. Furthermore, a trip to Russia could present an unwanted strain on his health, after his doctor has warned him about a heart condition which might also prevent him from travelling to America next year (although a voyage by sea is less taxing than train travel). Mahler proposes giving two concerts at a later date, suggesting some alternatives; he will honour his commitments if Schröder insists, but may have to cancel at the last minute, which could present Schröder with problems in finding a replacement.

A clause in the contract that Mahler signed with C.M. Schröder in 1902 gave the St Petersburg impresario and piano-maker first refusal for any concert that Mahler might conduct in Russia. In 1907, he somewhat disingenuously suggested to Norbert Salter, business manager of the Hamburg Opera, that he make use of this clause to release him from concerts provisionally promised to Alexander Siloti, but it appears from the present letter as if Schröder, at least, expected Mahler to honour his commitments. The concerts were not to be, however. In the 1906–7 season, Mahler's conducting trips had begun to anger the Vienna Opera executive and were attracting attacks from the anti-Semitic press. He had already signed a contract with Heinrich Conried, director of the Metropolitan Opera, to leave Vienna for New York, before personal tragedy struck in July 1907 with the death of his daughter Maria from a combination of scarlet fever and diphtheria. Mahler, after a routine examination by the doctor attending his family, learnt that his own heart was in poor order. A Viennese specialist subsequently confirmed a valvular defect and ordered that Mahler drastically curtail his habitual exercise programme – and, apparently, reconsider more arduous travel. After a final staging of Fidelio in Vienna on 15 October 1907 and a farewell performance of his Second Symphony in November, Mahler departed for the USA with Alma.