‘Herr Mahler has little to no creative faculty’

Gustav Mahler’s reception in Britain; 1860-1911

Word Count (excluding Table of Contents, Footnotes, and Bibliography): 3,984

Table of Contents
Introduction 2
Part I: British Music Criticism; 1892-1911 3
Part II: Mahler the Conductor 4
Part III: Mahler the Composer 8
Part IIIa: Henry Wood’s ‘Titan’ Performance 8
Part IIIb: Thomas Beecham’s Mahler 4 Performance 10
Conclusions: ‘The subject of a minority cult’ 13
Bibliography 15
Appendix (Reviews in Full) 17

1
 Introduction
The 21st century British audience is obsessed with Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). He is one of only seven

composers to have featured in over one hundred BBC Proms events since the start of the 21st century, with

his total number of events more plentiful than that of Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms,

and Richard Wagner.1 Moreover, the composer continues to play a central and audience-grabbing role in

many British orchestras’ concert series, with the London Symphony Orchestra boasting exclusively full

attendances to their Gergiev-led Mahler cycle in 2007,2 the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

witnessing strong attendances to its 2010-11 Mahler cycle,3 and the Liverpool Philharmonic planning a

Mahler cycle within the next few years.4 In an age of increasing empty seats in British concert halls,

Mahler is a box-office draw, a must for any orchestra’s annual programme.

However, this British fascination with the Kalischt-born composer and conductor was not always

strong. Though he received notable plaudits for his London conducting engagements in 1892, the only

time Mahler visited Britain, Mahler the composer was infrequently heard and frequently criticized. The

view published in The Times in October 1903 that the composer had ‘little to no creative faculty’ was not

an isolated view, but a common British attitude in the early 20th century.5 Only three of Mahler’s works

were played in Britain before his death in 1911. As shown in Figure I (p. 3), one of these was only an

extract of a larger work, as Henry Wood (1869-1944) conducted the Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony

at the 1909 Proms. Moreover, the Fourth Symphony was the only one of these works to receive a repeat

performance before Mahler’s death. Without the pioneering efforts of Henry Wood, who was always a

force for contemporaneous music in this country, it is unlikely that Mahler’s music would have reached

Britain at all until long after his death.

1
The other six are Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Elgar, Shostakovich, and Ravel.
All information collected from www.bbc.co.uk/proms
2
https://lso.co.uk/orchestra/history/chronology-alt/2000s
3
https://www.birminghampost.co.uk/whats-on/music/review-mahlercbso-symphony-hall-birmingham-3926887
4
https://www.liverpoolphil.com/press/the-transformational-combination-of-the-royal-liverpool
5
Unsigned, ‘Concerts’, The Times, (22 October 1903), p. 5

2
 This essay discusses the contemporaneous reception of Mahler in Britain as both a conductor and

composer, through reference to journals and newspapers such as The Musical Times, The Guardian, and

The Times; the state of British reviewing is introduced in Part I, and expanded upon later in the essay.

Part II looks at Mahler’s two-month visit to London in 1892, during which time he conducted the first

complete Ring cycle heard at Covent Garden; the reviews of these events are mostly positive. In sharp

contrast, Part III discusses the overwhelmingly negative reception Mahler received as a composer prior

to his death. There were four, potentially five, concerts featuring Mahler’s music between 1860 and 1911.

Focus is made of the first of these, a performance of the First Symphony in 1903 (Part IIIa), and the

repeat performance of the Fourth Symphony in 1907 (Part IIIb). Most composers witness scathing

reviews in their lifetime before more appreciation comes posthumously. But the disparity between

Mahler’s popularity as a composer then and his popularity now is nothing short of remarkable. This essay

is about how Gustav Mahler, a 21st century King of the concert hall, was once a 20th century British reject.

Figure 1: Mahler’s Music in Britain; 1860-1911

21st October 1903, Queen’s Hall. Proms.
Mahler 1, Henry Wood/New Queen’s Hall Orchestra (NQHO)
25th October 1905, Queen’s Hall. Proms.
Mahler 4, Wood/NQHO
2nd December 1907, Queen’s Hall
Mahler 4, Thomas Beecham/New Symphony Orchestra (NSO)
[Only possible, see pp. 10-11]

3rd December 1907, Queen’s Hall

Mahler 4, Beecham/NSO
31st August 1909, Queen’s Hall. Proms.
Adagietto from Mahler 5, Wood/NQHO

Part I: British Music Criticism; 1892-1911

As is discussed extensively in the essay, most of the reviews studied are filled with opinionated, and often

ignorant, conclusions. Subjectivity will always play a role in reviewing, but to use opinions so readily as

these reviews do makes them very different to ones published today; moreover, the lack of knowledge of

3
Mahler, Wagner, and even Beethoven in many of these reviews is staggering. The dire quality of

reviewing in this period led to the ‘rise of a new school of music criticism facilitated largely by John F.

Runciman (1866–1916)[, which] helped professionalize the music critic and improve his – and her –

literary status’.6 As Watt notes, ‘Runciman did not care for the recording of a critic’s impression or biased

view of a performance […] criticism based on wide knowledge, reading and musical experience was the

key to quality and the prime marker of this new era.’7 Runciman detested unveiled subjectivity; he wished

for a ‘new critic’ who would ‘frequently give no opinion’, and instead ‘merely [imply it]’.8 Runciman’s

words date from 1894, after the reviews of Mahler’s 1892 London conducting trip. The reviews of the

early 20th century performances of his music, however, are still filled with many of the aspects of

reviewing that Runciman criticised; the subjective and ignorant British reviewer was found to the end of

Mahler’s life.

Part II: Mahler the Conductor

In June-July 1892, Mahler made his only visit to Britain. He was thirty-one, and had just completed a

draft of Totenfeier, the symphonic poem that was to become the first movement of his Second Symphony;

he was Chief Conductor of the Stadttheater Hamburg, and brought with him an entire company from the

North German city.9 Mahler’s conducting engagements at both Covent Garden and Drury Lane imply a

connection to Sir Augustus Harris (1852-1896) who, according to a review in The Standard, had ‘control

of [both] theatres’.10 Through reference to the reviews and advertisements published in British

newspapers, this a list of the operas Mahler conducted in June-July 1892.11 With the amount of

6
Watt, Paul, ‘British Criticism; 1860-1945’, in Dingle, Christopher (ed.), The Cambridge History of Music Criticism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2019).
7
Ibid
8
Runciman, John F.,‘Musical Criticism and the Critics’, Fortnightly Review (August 1894), p. 177, cited in Watt,
Paul, ‘British Criticism; 1860-1945’
9
Mahler celebrated his 32nd Birthday midway through the tour, on 7 July.
10
Unsigned, ‘German Opera at Drury Lane’, The Standard, (4 July 1892), p. 3
11
It is likely that various performances were not recorded in any contemporaneous newspapers; as such, this list is
potentially incomplete.

4
performances he gave, it is no wonder that Mahler wrote in a letter home in English: ‘Audience: delighted

and thankful, […] I am quite done up!’.12

Wed, 8 June Siegfried Covent Garden

Mon, 13 June Siegfried Drury Lane
Wed, 15 June Tristan Covent Garden
Sat, 18 June Tristan Drury Lane
Wed, 22 June Rheingold Covent Garden
Sat, 25 June Tristan Drury Lane
Mon, 27 June Rheingold Drury Lane
Wed, 29 June Walküre Covent Garden
Sat, 2 July Fidelio Drury Lane
Mon, 4 July Walküre Drury Lane
Wed, 6 July Siegfried Covent Garden
Sat, 9 July Tristan Drury Lane
Mon, 11 July Siegfried Drury Lane
Wed, 13 July Götterämmerung Covent Garden
Sat, 16 July Tannhäuser Covent Garden
Mon, 18 July Götterämmerung Drury Lane
Wed, 20 July Fidelio Covent Garden
Fri, 22 July Tannhäuser Covent Garden13
By far the most informative and descriptive reviews for these events come from The Musical

Times. Unusual in that they review multiple performances in one long review (though obviously down to

the journal’s sporadic release), the two ‘German Opera’ articles in the July and August issues of The

Musical Times review a combined total of seven of the above events.14 Instead of the vague and subjective

phrases found in The Observer – ‘Between Acts 1 and 2 the beautiful No. 3 Overture to Fidelio was

excellently played’ – and The Standard – ‘The magnificent ‘Leonora’ overture in C (no. 3) [...] was most

admirably rendered’ – The Musical Times contains two articles of real intellectual quality.15 Not only does

the June issue of The Musical Times display an admirable knowledge of Wagner, but a rare and

impressive background on Mahler himself.

12
Carr, Jonathan, The Real Mahler, (London: Constable, 1997), p. 59
13
As part of the tour, Mahler’s Hamburg Orchestra also gave two performances of Viktor Nessler’s Der Trompeter
von Säkkingen, conducted by Leo Feld.
14
The July issue also reviews Feld’s performance of Der Trompeter von Säkkingen.
Unsigned, ‘German Opera, The Musical Times, (1 July 1892), pp. 406-7
Unsigned, ‘German Opera’, The Musical Times, (1 August 1892), pp.474-6
15
Unsigned, ‘Drury Lane Theatre’, The Observer, (3 July 1892), p. 7
Unsigned, ‘German Opera at Drury Lane’, The Standard, (4 July 1892), p. 3

5
 Herr August Mahler, though his name was unfamiliar to the bulk of English amateurs on his
arrival little more than a month ago, is no novice in the conductor’s craft. His first appointment, if
we mistake not, was at Cassel, where he conducted an Oratorio-Verein with great ability, Thence
he migrated to Leipsic [sic.] as second in command, where, it is worthy of note that, together with
C. von Weber, the grandson of the great composer, he completed the Opera of ‘Die drei Pintos’
from Weber’s sketch of 1821, and produced it on January 20, 1888. From Leipsic [sic.] he moved
to Pesth [sic.], where he was responsible for the production of a complete cycle of Wagnerian
operas. His present appointment is at Hamburg, where has brought with him the major part of the
excellent orchestra employed at the present series of German Operas at Covent Garden, together
with several of the principal vocalists.16
The Musical Times also breaks trend with other 1892 reviews in criticizing Mahler at times,

though most of its two reviews are positive towards him and his performances: ‘the tempi adopted both

here [Leonore no. 3] and in the body of the opera were occasionally open to criticism’.17 Reviews found

in the other papers are overwhelmingly positive, invariably describing Mahler as a possessing a

‘familiarity with every detail’ and as ‘conduct[ing] excellently as usual’.18 In The Real Mahler, Jonathan

Carr puts forward the suggestion that ‘the public was stunned to hear Beethoven’s Fidelio sung in the

original German, not in Italian as had long been the absurd German practice’19. This view is not

mentioned in any of the reviews of Fidelio, however, and many of the reviews instead note how common

preference was for German operas to be sung in German, with The Standard saying of Tannhäuser:

‘perhaps the announcement that the opera would be rendered by the German company had a stimulating

effect upon his admirers, for it cannot be denied that the performance of Tannhäuser in Italian has always

left a more or less unsatisfactory impression’.20

Carr also notes how George Bernard Shaw said of the German orchestra that ‘Covent Garden’s

own band could play better if given the chance’.21 Shaw’s view is at odds with the other reviews of these

concerts, which single out the ‘skillful’ German orchestra and company as a particular highlight of the

season: ‘The policy of bringing over a complete company, including orchestra, costumes, and scenery
16
Unsigned, ‘German Opera’, The Musical Times, (1 July 1892), p. 406
NB: ‘Lepisic’ and ‘Pesth’ refer to Leipsig, Germany, and Pest, Hungary, respectively.
17
Unsigned, ‘German Opera’, The Musical Times, (1 August 1892), p. 475
18
Unsigned, ‘German Opera at Drury Lane’, The Standard, (4 July 1892), p. 3
Unsigned, ‘The Opera’, The Times, (4 July 1892), p. 7
19
Carr, Jonathan, The Real Mahler, p. 59
20
Unsigned, ‘Royal German Opera’, The Standard, (18 July 1892), p. 3
21
Carr, Jonathan, The Real Mahler, p. 59

6
from Germany was one of indisputable wisdom, and the wonderful success of last night’s performance is

its just reward’.22 It seems both the Mahler and his Hamburg Company were received with open arms

from the London public.

Given that Mahler’s London performances were critically praised, enjoyed by audiences – ‘the

performance was received with much enthusiasm, the principal artists, together with Herr Mahler, being

recalled several times after each act’, and, judging by their popularity, financially successful - ‘the

admirers of the Bayreuth master in this country have been doubled in number by the enterprise of Sir

Augustus Harris’, it begs the question as to why Mahler never conducted again in Britain.23 Carr puts

forward a good suggestion for this, noting that having a summer filled with composing rather than

conducting was always Mahler’s preference: ‘Mahler should have felt well pleased with the tour which

served greatly to raise his international profile. In fact he resented the vacation time list in England which

he could have used for composing, and resolved not to accept such invitations again’.24 Given that for

much of the rest of his life Mahler would spend his summers composing in his various Alpine conducting

huts, this is a plausible explanation. But whilst Mahler himself was never to return to British shores after

July 1892, his music was to have a strong and lasting impact in this country. The early years of his

music’s British excursions, however, were met with hostility.

Part III: Mahler the Composer

Part IIIa: Henry Wood’s ‘Titan’ performance, 1903

On the 21st October 1903, Henry Wood conducted a Proms programme at the Queen’s Hall with the New

Queen’s Hall Orchestra. Lengthy even by contemporaneous standards, the concert featured works by

22
Unsigned, “Music’, The Observer, (3 July 1892), p. 7
Unsigned, ‘German Opera’, The Times, (9 June 1892), p. 6
23
Unsigned, ‘Royal German Opera’, The Standard, (18 July 1892), p. 3
Unsigned, ‘German Opera’, The Musical Times, (1 July 1892), p. 406
24
Carr, Jonathan, The Real Mahler, p. 60

7
Stanford, Wagner, and Bach, together with works by Alma Goetz, Charles Willeby, and John Philip

Sousa.25 Today, few would recognize the names of the latter three, but the likelihood is that none of these

composers were the most unheard of by the attending public. That title belongs to the composer whose

First Symphony opened the concert: Gustav Mahler. Fourteen years after its first performance, the ‘Titan’

Symphony, which had been substantially revised in the intervening years, finally came to British shores.

All the reviews for this event are negative towards Mahler’s music. In the review found in The

Times, the reviewer has no hesitation in outlining their subjective views and prejudices. Whereas a 21st

century reviewer may criticize a work or performance by attempting to say why it is bad rather than why

they think it is bad, one can easily gain an idea of what manner of music this reviewer does and does not

listen to in their spare time: ‘It is, in fact, quite impossible, however willing one may be, to find any

genuinely good point in the symphony which is a work commonplace and trite to an almost infantile

degree, contains no germ of real inventive ability’.26

Moreover, the reviewer rather misses the point when they exclaim that there is a ‘quasi-reference’

to ‘The Three Blind Mice’ in the slow movement of the symphony.27 In actual fact, the entire slow

movement is built around a nursery rhyme, as it transforms ‘Bruder Jacob’ (commonly known as ‘Frère

Jacques’) into a minor-mode lamentation depicting a child’s funeral. Therefore, it is only natural that

simple ‘do-re-mi’ or ‘mi-re-do’ phrases will be heard in the movement: that was Mahler’s intention.

Therefore, the ‘quasi-references’ to nursery rhymes are not a fault on Mahler’s point, but rather serve to

highlight the ignorance of this Times reviewer.

The reviewer is unknown, but The Times’s chief music critic at the time was John Alexander

Fuller Maitland (1856-1936). It is unlikely that Maitland himself wrote the review for this event given

that he had many colleagues who also could have attended. Assuming he did, however, can lead to some

25
https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/emqnc8
26
Unsigned, ‘Concerts’, The Times, (22 October 1903), p. 5
27
Ibid

8
interesting conclusions. Maitland was a strong admirer of Parry and Stanford, a ‘worshipper’ of both

Wagner and Brahms, and a detester of the more modern breed of composers such as Debussy, Strauss, and

even his countryman Elgar.28 It is altogether not surprising, therefore, that Maitland disliked the music of

Mahler.

There are, however, two aspects of Maitland’s critical reputation that must be noted. Firstly, his

integrity has a critic was questioned during his career, most notably by Elgar in 1905. Elgar labelled

Maitland’s obituary of Arthur Sullivan as ‘foul’, and it was later proved by Nigel Burton that Maitland

had falsified some of the information.29 Secondly, there is considerable evidence that Maitland was an

anti-Semite. Maria McHale, a prominent exponent of this argument, has pointed to Maitland’s constant

aversion to Sir Frederick Cowen as evidence for this claim.30 It is likely that this antisemitism would

colour Maitland’s writings on Mahler, in much the same way that antisemitism forced Mahler out of

Vienna in 1907. These two points make Maitland’s integrity and impartiality as a critic far more doubtful;

if he did write the review of Henry Wood’s ‘Titan’ of 1903, then one must question much of what he said.

Both the reviews in The Musical Standard and The Musical Times, published on 24th October and

1st November 1903 respectively, were written in specialist music journals, and were therefore aimed at a

more musically-informed audience than that of The Times. They do, therefore, assume more knowledge

than The Times review, with The Musical Times being particularly well-informed. The Musical Times

reviewer shows awareness of contemporaneous German music: ‘most of the themes are couched in

folk-tune phraseology, and their treatment is reminiscent of the style of Humperdinck, though less

polyphonic than that composer’s’.31 Their review also features one of the few ‘half-compliments’ featured

in British reviews of Mahler the composer – ‘It proved to be a clever, scholarly work […]’ – but I use the

term ‘half-compliment’ because it is instantly followed by a criticism – ‘[…] but so over-deployed as to

28
Unsigned, ‘John Alexander Fuller Maitland – Obituary’, The Times, (31 March 1936), p. 11
29
Fuller Maitland, J. A., ‘Sir Arthur Sullivan’, Cornhill Magazine, (March 1901), pp. 300–09;
Burton, Nigel, ‘Sullivan Reassessed: See How the Fates’, The Musical Times (Winter 2000), pp. 15–22
30
McHale, Maria. ‘Review: The English Musical Renaissance and the Press 1850–1914: Watchmen of Music by
Meirion Hughes’, Music and Letters, (August 2003), pp. 507-9
31
Unsigned, ‘Concerts’, The Musical Times, (1 November 1903), p. 742

9
frequently give rise to a sense of weariness before the hours [..] occupied by the performance had

expired’.32

However, both The Musical Times and Musical Standard reviews are as negative as the review

found in The Times, with the Standard’s review containing similar levels of unveiled subjectivity. The

Musical Standard describes Mahler’s music as ‘utterly impossible’, and states that ‘the music is bad – at

least, that is my opinion’.33 This reviewer, simply referred to as ‘JHGB’ is somewhat of an anti-foreign

figure in early-20th century music criticism; he also wrote that ‘Bruckner’s music is square-toed,

emotionless, and dull’.34 The Musical Times review, meanwhile, is a short review which sums up a

complete lack of interest for Mahler’s music, describing the Andante movement as ‘more gruesome than

charming’.35

Part IIIb: Thomas Beecham’s Mahler 4 performance, 1907

Whilst Wood’s performance of Mahler’s First Symphony was the first performance of Mahler’s music on

British shores, Thomas Beecham’s performance of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony on 3rd December 1907 was

the first second performance of a piece by Mahler in Britain, having already received its first performance

at the 1905 Proms. This is noteworthy, given that the success of a work can be defined not as whether it

has been performed, but whether it has been performed on multiple occasions. This performance of

Mahler’s Fourth, given by the New Symphony Orchestra at the Queen’s Hall, was the only second

performance of a work given in Britain during Mahler’s lifetime. As The Guardian correctly noted in a

review of the event, ‘the works of Gustav Mahler do not make the conquest of England rapidly’.36

There is some evidence to suggest that there was also a performance of Mahler’s Fourth

Symphony given on 2nd December by the same performers. This suggestion arises from the contrasting

32
Ibid
33
J.H.G.B., ‘Some Events of the Week’, The Musical Standard, (24 October 1903), p. 256
34
Ibid
35
Unsigned, ‘Concerts’, The Musical Times, (1 November 1903), p. 742
36
A.K., ‘Music in London, The Guardian, (4 December 1907), p. 12

10
accounts given by William Maitland Strutt (1886-1912) and The Musical Standard. Strutt, an audience

member, notes that Beecham’s performance occurred on 2nd December and also included works by

Étienne Méhul and Cyril Scott.37 Conversely, the Standard notes that the performance took place on 3rd

December and works by Wagner, Schubert, Maria Horne, and Joseph Holbrooke also featured (Méhul and

Scott are not mentioned).38 The fact that these accounts state not only separate dates but separate

programmes suggests that Beecham may have conducted two performances of Mahler’s Fourth

Symphony on consecutive nights, pairing it with different works for the second evening. However, both

The Times and The Guardian support The Musical Standard’s account, whilst no evidence can be found to

support Strutt’s assertion. Therefore, an additional performance of Mahler’s Fourth on 2nd December is

unlikely.39

The reviews from The Times and The Guardian of this event form an interesting parallel

regarding their knowledge and opinion of the work. The review from The Times is odd in that it states that

‘Mahler is a man who ought to be heard’, but then proceeds to extensively criticize his Fourth Symphony:

‘Mahler treats a tune that is introduced first in a quasi-Haydnish manner with so many cacophonous

distortions and so many frankly ugly effects that the result cannot help being inartistic as well as

painful’.40 The Guardian review, meanwhile, possesses the oddity of remaining undecided on the its

opinion of the work: ‘I am not sure where I liked it or not, but I was quite sure that on better acquittance I

should either admire it immensely or cordially detest it’.41

Furthermore, The Guardian review is very well-informed, particularly for a non-specialist paper,

whilst The Times review is close to ignorance in its knowledge of the symphony. Much of The Guardian

review is devoted to information on Mahler’s Fourth, noting that the poem recited in the last movement is

37
Strutt, William Maitland, ed. Evelyn Rayleigh, The Reminiscence of a Musical Amateur and an Essay on Musical
Taste, (London: Macmillan, 1915), p. 96
38
H.H., ‘Mahler’s Fourth Symphony’, The Musical Standard, (7 December 1907), p. 352
39
Unsigned, ‘Concerts’, The Times, (4 December 1907), p. 12 and A.K., ‘Music in London, The Guardian, (4
December 1907), p. 12
40
Unsigned, ‘Concerts’, The Times, (4 December 1907), p.12
41
Ibid, and A.K., ‘Music in London, The Guardian, (4 December 1907), p. 12

11
‘key to the whole symphony [...] the other movements are obviously inspired by various sections of the

song’; this is true, as Das Himmlishce Leben is not merely the song heard in the last movement, but the

bedrock on which the themes and ideas of the symphony are built. Meanwhile, The Times states as a

criticism that the symphony’s tunes are ‘simple to the verge of being childish’, a view that is almost

comical in its misunderstanding. Das Himmlische Leben is about a child’s view of heaven, sung from the

child’s perspective, and so an idea of the symphony is precisely that much of it should sound naïve and

childish. It is no wonder that the symphony begins with the childish sounds of sleigh bells. Perhaps this

Times reviewer was the same who wrote of the ‘The Three Blind Mice’ reference in Mahler’s First

Symphony in 1903; if so, they have again missed the point.

By far the most negative review of this event, however, was that published in The Musical

Standard.42 This moderate-sized review could be read as a warning to its readers not to listen to Mahler’s

music: ‘the analytical note states that this is Mahler’s shortest symphony and the one in which his ideas

are expressed most clearly. If this be so, we may reasonably anticipate the others with a certain amount of

dread, for there is a paucity of genuinely original matter in this work which renders it intolerably dull’.43

Rather like the review from The Musical Standard quoted in Part IIIa, this review contains plenty of

unveiled subjectivity, and is worlds away from The Musical Times’ reviews in terms of amount of

informed content; surprising given that, judging from their titles, they were aimed at a similar audience.

One gains no sense of what the symphony is or how it sounded, but only what the reviewer thought of it.

Conclusions: ‘The subject of a minority cult’

Between 1892 and 1911, Mahler witnessed the full spectrum of emotions towards him from the British

public. Arriving in 1892 as a young, talented Austrian conductor, Mahler received plaudits for his

interpretations of Wagner and Beethoven operas. His critical and commercial success in London must

have resulted in repeated invitations to return, not least from Sir Augustus Harris. This was balanced,

42
H.H., ‘Mahler’s Fourth Symphony’, The Musical Standard, (7 December 1907), p. 352
43
Ibid

12
however, by the overwhelmingly negative reception he received as a composer from 1903, with the dire

critical response to Henry Wood’s 1903 ‘Titan’ performance setting the tone for what was to become a

poor relationship between Mahler and Britain.

In both generalist papers such as The Times and The Guardian, and specialist journals such as The

Musical Times and The Musical Standard, British criticism was unanimous in its negative assessment of

Mahler. These reviews are generally lacking in knowledge of the composer, with only The Musical Times

providing any real insight into Mahler’s life and music. As per the contemporary practice, most of the

reviews are left anonymous, making it ironic that they are far more subjective than ones found today.

Reviews will always, due to their very nature, contain levels of subjectivity and opinion, but the degree to

which the reviews mentioned in this essay concern themselves with unveiled subjectivity, equating

opinion with fact, and failing to explain certain opinions with objective reasoning is striking, forming a

complete contrast with reviews written today.

This all begs the question, therefore, as to when Mahler transformed from a scapegoat to a legend

in British concert halls. Mahler’s music always struggled outside Austro-Germany, with Boulez writing

that it was ‘absolutely not performed in France’ during the first half of the 20th century, but its failure in

Britain must be one of the lowlights.44 There were stirrings of a more positive embrace in the 1930s with

composers such as Benjamin Britten acting as a British beacon for Mahler’s music, but the real watershed

moment came in Mahler’s centenary of 1960. This event prompted an extensive amount of British

research into and performances of Mahler’s music, and a general ‘rise of Mahler’s star’ amongst the

British public.45 Around this time, Sir John Barbirolli conducted all of Mahler’s symphonies except No. 8

in the UK before 1970, and Deryk Cooke had his completion of the Tenth Symphony premiered at the

Proms in 1964.

44
Boulez, Pierre, Boulez at 70, cited in Dingle, Christopher, ‘Commission and Omission: The Canon According to
Messiaen’, in ed. Mawer, Deborah, Historical Interplay in French Music and Culture, 1860-1960, (London:
Routledge, 2017), p. 228
45
Papanikolaou, Eftychia, ‘On the British Reception of Ken Russell’s Mahler’ in Barham, Jeremy (ed.), Rethinking
Mahler, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 165

13
 An article in The Observer in November 1962 summarizes Britain’s opinion of Mahler before

1960, especially during his lifetime, describing the composer as ‘the subject of a minority cult’.46 But an

article published a month later in The Guardian defines Mahler’s reception in Britain after 1960, calling

the composer the subject of a ‘growing cult’.47 Mahler’s music may have been dismissed during his

lifetime, but the composer with ‘little to no creative faculty’ was on the rise, and was destined to conquer

British Classical Music.

46
Heyworth, Peter, ‘Mahler and the Lost Generation’, The Observer, (4 November 1962), p. 28.
47
Elliott, JH, Guardian, (17 December 1962), p. 8

14
 Bibliography
Newspaper and Journal Articles in order of date of publication (see Appendix
for reviews in full)
Unsigned, ‘German Opera’, The Times, (9 June 1892), p. 6
Unsigned, ‘German Opera, The Musical Times, (1 July 1892), pp. 406-7
Unsigned, ‘Drury Lane Theatre’, The Observer, (3 July 1892), p. 7
Unsigned, ‘German Opera at Drury Lane’, The Standard, (4 July 1892), p. 3
Unsigned, ‘The Opera’, The Times, (4 July 1892), p. 7
Unsigned, ‘Royal German Opera’, The Standard, (18 July 1892), p. 3
Unsigned, ‘German Opera’, The Musical Times, (1 August 1892), pp. 474-6
Fuller Maitland, J. A., ‘Sir Arthur Sullivan’, Cornhill Magazine, (March 1901), pp. 300-9
Unsigned, ‘Concerts’, The Times, (22 October 1903), p. 5
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Books
Barham, Jeremy (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Mahler, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007)
Barham, Jeremy (ed.), Rethinking Mahler, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)
- Papanikolaou, Eftychia, ‘On the British Reception of Ken Russell’s Mahler’
Carr, Jonathan, The Real Mahler, (London: Constable, 1997)
Dingle, Christopher (ed.), The Cambridge History of Music Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, forthcoming 2019).

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 - Painter, Karen, 'Aesthetic Conservatism and Politics in German Music Criticism, 1900–1945'
-Watt, Paul, ‘British Criticism; 1860-1945’
Felder, Stewart, A Life in Crisis, (London: Yale University Press, 2004)
Floros, Constantin, Gustav Mahler: The Symphonies, (Aldershot: Scholar, 1994)
Franklin, Peter, The Life of Mahler, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)
Mahler, Gustav, Martner, Knud (ed.), Selected Letters of Gustav Mahler, (London: Faber and Faber, 2017)
Mawer, Deborah (ed.), Historical Interplay in French Music and Culture, 1860-1960, (London:
Routledge, 2017)
- Dingle, Christopher, ‘Commission and Omission: The Canon According to Messiaen’
Monahan, Seth, Mahler’s Symphonic Sonatas, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015)
Strutt, William Maitland, Evelyn Rayleigh (ed.), The Reminiscence of a Musical Amateur and an Essay
on Musical Taste, (London: Macmillan, 1915)

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