Symphony No. 2

Draft text, movement 5 – AL1

US-PHu Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Mahler-Werfel Papers, Ms. Coll. 575, folder 776.

Symphony No. 2 – Manuscript sources

Symphony No. 2 – Main page

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Title

None

Date

[?May-13 June 1894]

Calligraphy

Pencil

Paper

No details available.

Manuscript structure and collation

Unknown

Provenance

Presumably inherited by Alma Mahler; Anna Mahler, by inheritance; she donated the collection to US-PHu

Facsimiles

NKGII.2, 191 (with transcription)

Select Bibliography

NKGII.2, 5, 10; 93, 98

Notes

This source, at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania, has not been examined: the description is derived from NKGII.2.

The text fragment is drafted on the verso of a page from a letter from Justine to Gustav, dated by her Rom am 28 April: for health reasons she undertook an extended trip to Italy, lasting from mid November 1893 to late May 1894 (see GMLJ, 340ff.; GMLJE, 244ff.). Mahler would have received the letter in Hamburg a day or two later, so his pencil draft probably dates from May or early June: by 13 June at the latest it was superseded by AL2:

O Tag des Lebens, Auferstehungstag

du meiner Todesstunder Tag/Zeit

2) Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen

~~wird meine Seele aufwärts schweben~~

1) ~~hab ich~~ Mit Schmerzen die ich hier bewungen

werd ich dereinst zum Lichte schweben

~~O Tag des Lebens~~ O dunkler Schmerzenstag / O Tag zu Leben

du meiner Todesstunder Tag

O day of life, resurrection day

you day/time of my death-hour

2) With wings, that I have won myself

~~Will my soul soar upwards~~

1) ~~have I~~ With pains that I here conquer

will I one day soar to light

~~O day of life~~ O darker day of pain / O day to live

You day of my death-hour.

The first two and last two lines, with their repetitions of 'Tag' may be echoing Klopstock's third stanza (which Mahler did not set) but lines 3-6 anticipate in vocabulary and imagery stanza VII of AF2.