NY Philharmonic Celebrates The Centennial Of Gustav Mahler's 1st Season With An Exhibit At Avery Fisher Hall

The New York Philharmonic is celebrating the centennial of the start of Gustav Mahler's tenure as its music director with an exhibit displaying letters from the composer/conductor to his newly-appointed New York Philharmonic Concertmaster, as well as a two-page sketch from the third movement of his Ninth Symphony and other memorabilia from Mahler's two-year tenure with the New York Philharmonic, the only symphonic orchestra directorship he ever held. Mahler's Only Orchestra: The Centennial of Gustav Mahler's First Season with the New York Philharmonic is on display through December 31, 2009, in the Bruno Walter Gallery on the Grand Promenade at Avery Fisher Hall.

The exhibit, planned to coincide with the Philharmonic's performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 3 on September 17-18 and 22, 2009, led by Music Director Alan Gilbert, also displays Mahler's markings on scores of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 and his own Symphony No. 1, which he used the last time he conducted the work. Programs, photographs, and a listening component - featuring interviews with musicians who worked with the Bohemian-born Austrian composer and conductor - are also part of the exhibit.

In the letters to Theodore Spiering, the New York Philharmonic concertmaster whom Mahler hired himself, the conductor discusses programming, soloists, and musical needs, and his thoughts about numbers of concerts, salary, and musicians. In his May 7, 1909, letter, for example, he formally hires Mr. Spiering as the Orchestra's first Concertmaster, and notes that, "You will receive as a salary $5,000 and a free trip from Berlin to New York. For a solo number that you play you will receive $200 extra." In another letter he asks Spiering which concertos he would like to perform. "I consider it necessary to begin with a solid masterpiece and not with a bravura piece à la Vieuxtemps, Bruch, etc."

The letters are on loan from The Schubert Club of Saint Paul, Minnesota, which acquired them in the mid-1990s from Spiering's daughter. Established in 1882, The Schubert Club is a non-profit arts organization that presents a variety of recitals and chamber music programs, operates a Museum of Musical Instruments and Manuscripts, runs an annual scholarship competition for music students, provides after-school music lessons, presents master classes, commissions new musical works by American composers, and produces recordings and publications.

The exhibit was curated by the staff of the New York Philharmonic Archives, Barbara Haws, Archivist and Historian.

Gustav Mahler and the New York Philharmonic
In 1909, with the goal of creating "the best orchestra America had ever heard," Mary Seney Sheldon and Minnie Untermeyer led a group of wealthy New Yorkers in reorganizing and financially guaranteeing the New York Philharmonic and hiring Gustav Mahler. The Guarantors Committee changed the Orchestra's organization from a musician-operated cooperative to a modern institution with managers and salaries, expanding the season from 18 concerts to 46, which included a tour of New England. The Philharmonic was the only symphony orchestra at which Mahler ever worked as music director without any opera responsibilities, freeing him to explore the symphonic literature more deeply. In New York, he conducted several works for the first time in his career and introduced audiences to his own compositions as well as presenting well-known compositions in historic cycles.

Mahler led his first concert as music director on November 4, 1909, and during his first season he replaced nearly 25 percent of the Orchestra members, which then totaled 94. On February 21, 1911, an ailing Gustav Mahler led his last concert, leaving Spiering to conduct the remainder of his programs. Mahler sailed from New York on April 8 and died in Vienna on May 18, 1911.