|
Lost and Found: the Edytha Moser Collection of Mahler Proofs
In February and March 1932 the Neues Wiener Journal published
two reports that tell an unusual story about an important collection of
proof copies of songs by Mahler that were published by C.F. Kahnt in
1905. Only two of these copies have been located in public
collections, and the existence of the others, and their history seems
not to have been noted by Mahler scholars until the first of the
newspaper articles was traced by Knud Martner. It appeared in the
Neues Wiener Journal,
13729 (10 February 1932), p. 6:
Stolen Mahler autographs
to be auctioned
Kolo Moser's son reclaims his property
Exclusive report of the 'Neues Wiener
Journal'
On Friday and Saturday valuable old books,
prints, Austriaca and Viennese memorabilia will be auctioned
in the book department of the Dorotheum. Of particular
interest among the items on offer are five proof
copies of Mahler's songs, mostly settings of Rückert: Der
Tamboursg'sell, 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen', 'Ich
atmet' einen linden Duft' und Um Mitternacht. The
fifth copy is the set of page proofs for
Kindertotenlieder corrected by Mahler.
All the copies carry dedications in Mahler's
hand to Frau Editha Moser, the wife of Mahler's friend, the
painter Kolo Moser. On the title page of Der
Tamboursg'sell it reads 'To Mrs Edytha in friendly
recollection of Gustav Mahler (if she happens to have spare
time for it)'; on the song 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen':
'Frau Edytha Moser, who should be only briefly lost to the
world, and should forthwith reappear with her dearest one';
On 'Ich atmet' einen linden Duft', Mahler wrote 'A gentle
fragrance for the time of love'. For Um Mitternacht
he wrote, full of self-irony, 'If you are still awake at
midnight and feel like making music, then I wish you more
beautiful music [than this]'. On the Kindertotenlieder Mahler wrote only a
short dedication. The dedications are mostly signed with his
full name, sometimes also with the title of the song in
Mahler's hand. These items are particularly interesting
because of the corrections by Gustav Mahler. For an
understanding of the dedications it should be noted that at
the time Mahler wrote them, Kolo and Edytha Moser had
recently been married.
Ours is the only paper to be in position to
report the circumstance of this auction. Until 1928 the
valuable autographs were in the possession of Kolo Moser's
son, Karl Moser, and they were purloined from his then
residence at Steinfeldgasse 6, XIX District. Since he
considered the pursuit of the culprit, who was unknown to
him, to be hopeless, he abstained from making a report, but
naturally, after the autographs came to light at the
Dorotheum, he initiated the necessary steps to achieve the
return of his property. Herr Karl Moser assures us that the
auction of the autographs will not take place on Friday. |
Kolo and Edytha Moser were members of Mahler's inner circle of
Viennese friends, and were married on 1 July 1905; their first son,
Karl, was born on 21 August 1906 (RLGPKM,
414) and it seems likely that it to that event that Mahler alludes. At the time of the alleged theft
Karl was the owner of a scrap metal
business (LEH,
1929, I, 990; II, 151), and, following Kolo Moser's death in 1918, his
mother had married a coffee-shop owner Adolf Hauska (1881–1929).
Fascinating and helpful though the first newspaper report is, the
following month there was a follow-up article that fills in some of the
details of the curious affair (Neues Wiener Journal,
13758 (10 March 1932), p. 15)
Courtroom
Stolen Autographs of Gustav Mahler
Dedications to the wife of the painter Kolo
Moser
Exclusive report of the 'Neues Wiener
Journal'
On 12 February this year a series of
autographs by Gustav Mahler should have been auctioned. It
consisted of five proof copies of songs by Mahler, with
autograph corrections and dedications added by the composer,
i.e.: Der Tambours'gsell, 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden
gekommen', 'Ich atmet' einen linden Duft', Um Mitternacht
and five Kindertotenlieder. Mahler's humourous,
self-ironical dedications addressed to Frau Editha Moser,
the wife of Mahler's friend, Kolo Moser. Thus the one on the
title page of Der Tambours'gsell reads 'To Mrs Edytha
in friendly recollection of Gustav Mahler (if she happens to
have spare time for it)'; on 'Ich atmet' einen linden
Duft', Mahler wrote 'A gentle fragrance for the time of
love', and on the song Um Mitternacht 'If you are
still awake at midnight and feel like making music, then I
wish you more beautiful music [than this]'.
The announcement of the imminent auction of
the autographs came to the attention of Kolo Moser's son,
Karl Moser, who immediately reported that the autographs,
which had been given to him by his mother as a gift, had
been stolen from him. The police enquiries at the Dorotheum
showed that the proofs had been passed to the organisation
for auction by the agent Josef Löbl. At the time of the
theft of the autographs Löbl was the life partner of Editha
Moser, Karl Moser's mother, and was then living with her as
Moser's guest.
Yesterday Löbl stood before the Döbling
district court (LGR, Dr Reschauer, acting state prosecutor
Dr. Schreiber). He explained that when she was living with
him in a common household Mrs Moser had given him the
autographs. Frau Moser, when called as a witness, stated
that she had certainly once said to her partner 'what
belongs to me belongs to you!' Since Löbl did not know that
the Mahler songs belonged to her son, when he took the
autographs for himself, he certainly did so in good faith.
Called as a witness Moser also agreed that this was
possible. — Judge (to the witness): what is the value of the
autographs. — Witness: that is difficult to say. At the Dorotheum the estimate was 180 Schillings.
The judge decided to transfer the papers to
the assize court, since the value of the autographs would
undoubtedly exceed 250 Schillings. |
|
So far no further trace of the court case has come to light,
but it must have been resolved relatively swiftly since four of sets of
proofs (Um Mitternacht was not included for some reason) were
again offered for sale in the same auction rooms in October 1932. The
estimates in the
Dorotheum catalogue were relatively modest:
|
Estimate
(Shillings) |
|
Estimate
(Shillings) |
Lot 176 Der
Tamboursg'sell |
30 |
Lot 177 „Ich
atmet' einem Linden Duft“ |
30 |
Lot 178
Kindertotenlieder |
40 |
Lot 179 „Ich bin der Welt abhanden
gekommen“ |
40 |
|
|
|
|
There
is no documentation of the subsequent ownership history of the copies, except for the proofs of Kindertotenlieder and „Ich bin
der Welt abhanden gekommen‟ which were part of the collection
presented to Stanford University in the late 1940s to form the Memorial
Library of Music 'In Memory of the Stanford Men and Women who made the
Supreme Sacrifice in World War II' (see
NPCML,
nos
625, 626). The donor was the retired business
man,
George Thomas Keating (1892–1976): according to the Collected
Letters of Joseph Conrad¹
he was born in New York and his career took him from running
errands to being the head of Moore and Munger, a New York company
dealing in paper and clay products. In 1938 he had donated his rich
collection of material relating to Joseph Conrad to Yale as A Conrad
Memorial Library, and apart from printed and manuscript music also
collected operatic recordings, the works of James Branch Cabell and
materials about the Spanish Conquest of the New World. It would seem,
therefore that Keating probably acquired the Mahler items in the late
1930s, or possibly in the immediate post-war years.
|