A Cartoon of Mahler

 

 

Sieben Lieder, No. 6

Um Mitternacht – [ACFh]

 

Current location unknown

 

Sieben Lieder – Manuscript sources

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Title

  Unknown
Date
  [January 1905]

Calligraphy

  Unknown

Paper

   

Manuscript structure and collation

 

Unknown

Provenance

 

Supplied to C.F. Kahnt by the composer under contract

Facsimiles

  None

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Notes

 

The dating offered here for this source is based on two conjectures: firstly, that Mahler probably initiated the preparation of performance material for the song (manuscript copies of the full score, orchestral parts and piano-vocal score for the singer) once the plans for the first performance, under the auspices of the Vereinigung schaffender Tonkunstler Wiens on 6 January (later rescheduled for 29 January 1905) were well advanced (press announcements began to appear in mid October 1904); and secondly, that at this stage Mahler envisaged that it would be sung by a tenor, probably Erik Schmedes (the evidence is discussed in more detail in the notes to the collection as a whole).

Although Schmedes withdrew from the concert in January 1905, and the song was first sung by the baritone Friedrich Weidemann, the copyist's full score of the high-voice version had probably already been completed, and, if so, could have been used (along with [CO6h]) for the third performance, in Graz on 1 June 1905, when Um Mitternacht was finally sung by Schmedes. Such a conjectural scenario is not inconsistent with the plate numbers of the published full score and parts (4502, 4503) which suggest that their engraving and printing may have been undertaken slightly later than rest of the first batch of printings of the songs.

   
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© 2007 Paul Banks | This page was lasted edited on 18 February 2018