The Complex Friendship of Composers Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. Free Essay

Gustav Mahler reportedly said, "Strauss and I tunnel from opposite sides of the mountain. One day we shall meet." The statement highlights the nature of the relationship between Gustav Mahler and Strauss. The two had different strengths; Mahler had a strong passion for conducting while Richard Strauss was good at composing. Strauss is very popular for his tone poems and operas, while Mahler rejected program music and the Neudeutsch School in his symphonies. The uniqueness of each composer went beyond their musicianship into their personal lives. Mahler was brought up as a "prominent member" in Iglau's Jewish society.

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In contrast, Strauss became more and more anti-Semitic, mainly due to the strong influence of Richard Wagner and Alexander Ritter, who were also composers. After the death of Mahler, Strauss became the President of the Nazi Reich Culture Chamber, a move that saw his music banned in Israel. Although Mahler and Strauss different traits, it is surprising that they maintained close contact for more than two decades.

The connection between Mahler and Strauss was ambivalent. However, they had established a mechanism of how their careers could be used to advocate for the work of each other. Mahler held positions at the Hamburg State Opera under Bernhard Pollini and at the Imperial and Royal Opera in Vienna under Emperor Franz Joseph I. On the other hand, Strauss was conducted at the Munich Opera and was President of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein. On the surface, it may deceivingly seem that Mahler and Strauss maintained correspondence exclusively for networking reasons. Nonetheless, the documentation of the time they spent together in the letters they wrote to each other and members of their families demonstrate an honest, non-competitive friendship.

Strauss was highly implicated with the redemption of the public perception of Mahler's after a meeting held in the 1880s. I Berlin, the audiences who were present did not validate Mahler's works until Strauss carried out a performance in 1900. Despite the efforts of Strauss, Mahler still struggled to gain the critic's approval: "At the end of the concert season [1900],. .Richard Strauss carried out a Philharmonic Concert in Berlin at which the soprano Emilie Herzog sang three of Mahler's Wunderhorn-Lieder. The performance achieved more success compared to the premières that had been having held in Berlin in the 1890s. The public encored "Rheinlegendchen," however, some people still criticized the performance, especially their folk-music aspect (Volkstümlichkeit) that triggered disapproval." Notwithstanding the negative critics from the press, Strauss had already contributed immensely to the growing success of Mahler.

Apart from conducting Mahler's music, Strauss marketed the music through his positions in Royal Court Opera in Berlin and at the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein. The first triumphant program of Strauss with a Mahler symphony took place in 1901 in Berlin after Strauss wrote to the organizer of the concert, who wanted to disregard Mahler's Fourth Symphony. In addition to convincing the event organizer to keep Symphony No. 4, Strauss managed to persuade the organizer to include Symphony Nos. 1 and 2 to the program. Thus, it can be perceived that Strauss anticipated that the concert would be well accepted by the audience. Before that, Felix Weingartner, a conductor, had been touring with Mahler's Symphony No. 4 in Southern Germany. Nonetheless, at the Berlin concert, Strauss afforded Mahler the chance to conduct his symphonies. Though Strauss was an accomplished conductor, he decided to offer Mahler an opportunity to promote his status. These unique scenarios provide sufficient proof that these Strauss and Mahler were not very big rivals, as portrayed by contemporaries and musicologists have presented.

The most significant contribution that Strauss did to Mahler's career as a composer was at the Festival of Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein in Krefeld; Strauss employed his presidential power to debut Mahler's Third Symphony and made the piece the main event. During the performance, Strauss stirred the audience by shouting near the podium at the end of the first movement. The audience reacted by giving a standing ovation that lasted more than fifteen minutes. Hence, this made the third Symphony by Mahler his only piece of work to have ever received such a positive response. However, Mahler's greatest achievement of the event came the following day. Henry-Louis de La Grange, a musicologist, stated that, "For once . . . there were no insults in the next day's press reports to detract from the memory of his triumph." Hence, the curse of negative attention that Mahler often received began to fade, and it was attributed mainly to Strauss's contribution. Besides, the festival had a massive significance to Mahler since it because it marked the moment he set aside music program. After realizing works by other distinguished composers such as Hugo Wolf and Max von Schillings would be performed, Mahler anxiously deleted all titles and headings in the final hours before the performance. Mahler continually wrote off his stance against program music to make himself incomparable to other late Romantic contemporaries, especially Strauss.

The impact Strauss had on Mahler's Third Symphony lasted beyond the 1902 Festival of Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein. Three Dutch musicians were in attendance: Willem Mengelberg, Martin Heuckeroth, and Henri Viotta. Their appearance may have been a result of Strauss's involvement when he made a profitable visit to the Netherlands. Even if the Dutchmen were not present at a concert themselves, they surely read or heard positive reviews of Strauss's music. After the esteemed performance of Mahler's Fourth Symphony in Krefeld, the musicians invited Mahler to perform his Symphony Nos. 1 and 3 at the Arnhem Festival in Holland, which would take place in October 1903. The critics' response proved that the favorable reviews of the festival performance were not by chance. Mahler received praise, especially of his Third Symphony, in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, De Nieuwe Courant, and Amsterdammer Weekblad.

By the time Mahler had completed his Symphony No. 5, Strauss's advocacy for Mahler's works had become controversial. In a letter to Mahler, Strauss explained that multiple artists accused him that he was bestowing "preferential treatment" to Mahler Both composers were undoubtedly aware that other musicians or superiors could make this observation. In the same letter, Strauss defended himself, stating that Mahler requested him "not to perform [Mahler's] Fifth Symphony at Graz so that [he] could support the Festival without being suspected of ulterior motives." Though the two men had a complicated friendship, Strauss was willing to jeopardize his reputation as a fair President and concert organizer to assist Mahler. If Strauss's association with Mahler was self-serving, he could have severed his connection with Mahler the moment his motives came under scrutiny. Instead, Strauss's dedication signified a bond between them.

Strauss typically had just intentions toward Mahler, but his actions occasionally hurt Mahler's career, and more often, his feelings. For example, Mahler's Symphony No. 1 (Titan) had a successful premiere in Hamburg in 1893. Still, the work flummoxed audiences when Strauss prepared and conducted it at the 1894 Festival of Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein. Strauss did not directly cause this failure, but it significantly impacted Mahler's confidence, which worsened when in the preceding month, Strauss criticized the work. Strauss's letter has been lost, but Mahler replied, "I intended to show a struggle in which victory is furthest from the protagonist just when he believes it closest. Consequently, this is the nature of all spiritual struggles; for there, it is by no means, so simple to become or to be a hero."

Perhaps Strauss did not understand the narrative of Titan or thought the plot was a simplistic trope of a hero saving the day. In addition to upsetting Mahler, Strauss's comment potentially contributed to Mahler's aversion to program music. Mahler had a pattern of being profoundly negatively impacted by comments. For instance, Strauss once called Mahler's Symphony No. 6 "over-instrumented," and Mahler ruminated on this word. As Mahler grew dependent on Strauss's judgment, he started to wonder why nothing came easily to him, but only to others. The source of Mahler's turmoil was not Strauss but his self-doubt, but it still manifested in his relationship with Strauss.

Mahler abetted Strauss and his controversial operas, regardless of his fluctuating emotions toward Strauss. In 1895, Mahler's appointment with the Hamburg State Opera allowed him to conduct the first prelude to Strauss's Guntram, at Hamburg's Subscription Concert. Mahler claimed to be pleased with the outcome, but he was merely polite. Consequently, this was evident when Mahler wrote to an unknown receiver, "Apart from Guntram I have never met with anything so childishly immature and at the same time so pretentious." Although Strauss had no qualms about criticizing Mahler's compositions to his face, Mahler did not have the same courage. Thus, this fear presumably stemmed from his need for Strauss's approval. Mahler was not alone in his dislike for Guntram. German stages did not want to perform the opera. Even when Strauss succeeded in premiering the entire work, the performance was a catastrophe. The orchestra ridiculed Strauss during rehearsals, and Guntram was canceled after one performance.

It was six years before Strauss finished his next opera, Feuersnot. Mahler took advantage of his post at the Imperial and Royal Court Opera to compel censors to permit its performance, despite a risqué joke. Both Mahler and the conductor Ernst von Schüh requested the premiere to be performed at their respective posts in Vienna and Berlin, but Strauss chose to Schüh to conduct Feuersnot in Dresden because Strauss admired him. Mahler had urged Strauss to not have the performance in Berlin partially for selfish reasons, but also to protect Strauss from backlash by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Strauss took Mahler's cautionary advice, but he did not take Mahler's efforts with censors into account, unconcerned for Mahler's feelings. Strauss's decision alludes to the more considerable strain in their friendship; Strauss's aloofness could never match Mahler's overbearing need for Strauss's blessing.

Feuersnot was not the only time Mahler would campaign for Strauss's music to censors. Months before Salome premiered in Dresden, Mahler pressed his superiors for a performance at the Vienna Court Theatre. About one month later, Mahler received notice from the censors that they "[have] declared [themselves] opposed 'for religious and moral reasons' to the acceptance of the libretto of the opera Salome." After this dismissal and the arduous task of obtaining approval for Feuersnot, Mahler was frustrated with censors. When Mahler resigned from his post at the Vienna Court Opera in 1907, the ban on Salome was undeniably a factor in this decision. Mahler was not successful in advancing Strauss's career in the same way Strauss had done for him. Still, he undoubtedly promoted Strauss to superiors and censors when an opportunity presented itself. If Mahler had resided in a less religiously conservative city, such as Dresden, the outcome of Mahler's efforts might have made a more significant impact on Strauss's works.