Symphony No. 2

Sketch, first movement – S1.1

1
Details of paper and dimensions from SHMMT, I, 399.

2
Reilly's 1979 description (ERDS, p. 271) described this as a bifolio; by the time of Hefling's acount (1985, q.v.), it was a single sheet. See also the notes to this entry.

3
No unambiguous reference to this folio (or bifolio) appears in either of the inventories of Bauer-Lechner's collection of Mahler autographs: it may have been one of the unidentified manuscripts (Inv. I, IV; Inv. II, 10)

4
ASSZC, xxv, 65 gives the month as January.

5
In the past the reference number Music Department R 2007N 233=2=R was associated with this manuscript. From the current online catalogue records it appears that this manuscript may now be housed with OD1

Title

[Top of 1r, pencil, ?Stefan Zweig:] Gustav Mahler Erster Entwurf zur Zweiten Symphonie / in eigener Handschrift

[in centre of page, ink, autograph:] 1. Satz

Date

[January–July 1888]

Calligraphy

Ink

Paper

12 staves, no maker's mark, upright format, no watermark, 332 x 254 (r: not recorded)ą

Manuscript structure and collation

1 fol.:˛
1r	title
1v1–2	6 bars, deleted, leading to b. 427
1v3–4	bb. 428–34
1v6	bb. 435–41
1v7–8	bb. 442–45
1v9–12	blank

Provenance

Gift from Mahler to Natalie Bauer-Lechner; passed from her heirs to V.A. Heck (autograph dealer),ł and subsequently acquired (before 1930) by Stefan Zweig who presented the manuscript to IL-J in February 1934⁴ (OMIK, 375, no. 894; ASSZC, 65).

Facsimiles

1v: OMIK, 376

Select Bibliography

SHMMT passim including a transcription of 1v: II, 22; ERDS, passim; OMIK, 375, no. 894, (where the manuscript is erroneously described as consisting of 12 pages (presumably referring to OD1 by mistake) and its location is given as the Schwadron Autograph Collection).⁵

Notes

According to an anecdote reported by Natalie Bauer-Lechner (NBL2, 50; NBLE, 53), Mahler was working on the movement at the time of the first performances of his completion of Weber's Die drei Pintos, the premičre of which was on 20 January 1888. So, these sketches were probably written between January and, at the very latest, July 1888; the orchestral draft (OD1) is dated 8 August 1888.

Reilly (1979) described this as a bifolio (it was subsequently described as a single sheet by Hefling (1985)) and suggested it originally formed a wrapper for OD1 (also at IL-J), although the latter is oblong (not upright) format paper. This manuscript has not been examined, though the photocopy at A-Wigmg (Ph 72) and the facsimile have been consulted. When in June 2008 Dr Avior Byron kindly visited IL-J to confirm the manuscript description, the manuscript could not be located.