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Mahler was anxious to arrange a
performance almost as soon as the ink was dry on his fair copy
of the Symphony, and approaches to Dresden, Leipzig, Munich and
Prague seem to have been made over the summer months (see the
chronology for an overview of events). Following the success
of his completion of Die drei Pintos, Mahler was in a
more secure financial position than heretofore (he could offer
Strauss 1000 marks towards the cost of copying the performing
material for Guntram - see
GMRSB,
30;
GMRSBE, 31),
so could have ordered the parts quite promptly. However it is
perhaps significant that according to a letter to Paul Bernhard
Limburger, one of the directors of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, with
whom he had
correspondence in the hope of securing a performance of the work
there (HLG1,
184 and 868, fn. 75), Mahler didn't intended to have a copy of
the score prepared until September 1888: normally any parts
would have been prepared after the completion of this copy. But
as the various opportunities slipped by, Mahler may have
postponed the task of producing the set until a firm date
emerged, which it did when in early September 1889 he was
approached by a delegation from the Budapest Philharmonic with a
request for permission to perform one of his symphonic works (ZRGMH,
75).
After the controversial première on
20 November 1889 the
Symphony remained in Mahler's desk for a few years (though he
did try to interest at least one publisher and a conductor in
the work in 1891 (see
chronology)), until late 1892 or early 1893, when he
undertook a thorough revision of the work, and wrote out a new
fair copy (AF2)
and ordered a new manuscript copy of the score (ACF2).
The new version was first heard in Hamburg on
23 October 1893;
what is not known is whether the original part set ([CO1])
had merely been revised, or whether an entirely new one ([CO2])
was produced. The extent of the revisions made in 1893, and the
fact that Mahler rethought the placing of rehearsal numbers
(which would have entailed a tedious and time-consuming chore if
the original parts were retained) offer substantial grounds for thinking that the latter is the most
likely scenario (both are included in the outline
stemma for the
work).
The 1893 performance encouraged Mahler to think about further
revisions to the score and this was was reinforced by the news,
in January 1894, that Strauss had recommended the work for
inclusion in the thirtieth festival of the
Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein
in June of that year (GMRSB,
23–4;
GMRSBE, 27; see
the notes to
ACF2 for a full account of the
work's evaluation and acceptance). By 22 April Mahler had received notification of
the favourable reports on the Symphony and the possibility of a
performance from von Bronsart (the President of the ADM), and
replied to indicate that the parts were ready - reflecting the
fact during the early months of the year Mahler had further
refined the orchestration, and expanded the number of wind
instruments required (clearly reflected the late
revisions to ACF2), thus entailing a
substantial overhaul of the orchestral material. He eventually
sent the parts to Strauss (who was to undertake the preparatory
rehearsals) on 16 May (see the
notes to AFC2 for a detailed narrative of this period in the
work's evolution). The Weimar performance, on
3 June 1894, had little critical success and it was not
until 1896, when Mahler arranged and paid for a
concert in Berlin devoted solely to his own music, that the
work was heard again. Although it cannot be dated with any
certainty, it seems very likely that the currently unavailable
manuscript score (ACF3)
was prepared in connection with this concert; whether the parts
used at Weimar were simply revised again, or a new set produced,
is unknown. Similarly the final manuscript score (ACF4)
may have been produced for the Prague performance on
3 March 1898 and again we do not know what orchestral
material was used. However this last score was subsequently used
as the copy text for the first edition of the score (PF1),
and the usual practice was for the current manuscript parts (in
the case of the strings parts, just the first desk of each
section) to be used in preparing the printed orchestral material
(PO1). |
