Found: The last known photo of Gustav Mahler
mainHenry-Louis de La Grange’s Médiathèque Musicale Mahler has circulated a long-rumoured photograph of Gustav Mahler being stretchered off a train on his final arrival in Vienna on May 12, 1911.
The pap shot was published in the Austrian newspaper Das Interessante Blatt on May 18, the day Mahler died.
No Mahler expert of my long acquaintance had ever seen this picture.
This is incredible! Glad to have been able to find the original newspaper page to see the publication context in full! Thank you for the information.
I can send it to you
Have you ever posted this pic on the Mahler Forum?
WOW this is mindblowing. Mahler back on home turf. I’m sure there are more unseen photographs out there of Mahler in last days.
In his official photos Mahler looks very striking, but casual photos never do justice to his genius. At the moment, I am reading the book about Alma Mahler by Oliver Hilmes with my very limited German. The overall impression is that he was a very hopeless husband until, less than ideal wife Alma, started having an affair with Walter Gropius.
If it was published in a newspaper and wasn’t just a private photo someone happened to snap that day, how had it eluded so many Mahler “experts” for so long?
Photo appeared once, in a newspaper “supplement” (not a newspaper) that ceased publication before WWII, long before the modern interest in Mahler developed, a publication that probably has not, or only recently has been rigorously indexed for scholars to trawl.
The original photo seems not to exist, only this photo of a magazine page.
It is not at all surprising that this item has eluded notice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_interessante_Blatt
Would you tell me which newspaper? Thank you
Very cool!
Here is a link to the entire page, from the Austrian National Library’s digitized archive:
http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=dib&datum=19110518&seite=8&zoom=33
There is a report about Mahler in a separate page, focusing on his health and trip back to Vienna:
http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=dib&datum=19110518&seite=12&zoom=33
It took me a couple minutes to trace it: first I looked up the publication in Wikipedia, then I followed a link to the library’s collection, then I narrowed down to the date.
What is so rare about it? I can hardly believe that Mahler researchers wouldn’t have checked the Austrian National Library’s newspaper and magazine collections for articles on Mahler around June 1911. Even before digital days, it was all available on paper.
Thank you Mr. Linardos. Interesting example of Austrian racism on the second page you cite (the soap ad).
It is to to find when you know where to search. I shared the picture with many Mahler scholars. They all honestly said they never saw the picture before.
It is easy to find when you know where to search. I shared the picture with many Mahler scholars. They all honestly said they never saw the picture before.
absolutely…. and well done!
You might want to check that second link you posted. In the right upper corner is a cartoon that simply looks about as racist as you can get (two black boys).
What is a “pap shot”? I’m baffled.
paparazzi?
I find it hard to believe that Gus and Alma never had a wedding photo taken.
The swaddled figure in the photo is so distant and lacking in so much detail that it could be anyone, although it IS very interesting to see the photo of Mahler’s last return to Vienna.
It’s no wonder that it hasn’t become a part of the usual Mahler iconography.
What a fascinating article! Sadly Mahler’s passing was then reported in the following edition:
http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=dib&datum=19110525&seite=5&zoom=33
and also here:
http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=dib&datum=19110525&seite=10&zoom=33
Personally, I’d like to see more photos of Mahler actually enjoying life. I receive little satisfaction from a photo of him being taken off of a train on a stretcher.
I also had no satisfaction, but I was very much moved.
This appeared in a newspaper supplement – what is shown is a photo of a shrouded body being carried from the train, with an inset of another photo showing GM. The only thing connecting the two is the text underneath and all we have to rely on is journalistic ‘truth’. The question remains: is this report to be believed?
Why not ask if there is any reason for this report not to be believed?
A non-story.
Pure fetishism.
Webern conducted Mahler 8 in 1926
http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?aid=kuv&datum=0001&page=30&size=45&qid=78S5502I47E7SG0YD4CTR5BR91GH8X
“Gus Mahler’s Sad, Last Days!”
“Star Conductor Comes Home to Die, Reconciles With Straying Wife In Final Hours.”
(If The Daily Mail were covering it in 1911).
Not newsworthy then (except to a provincial putz) and certainly not now.
Hello. This is a very nice picture.