Italy’s president visits Mahler hut
Why MahlerIn what may be the first official acknowledgement that Gustav Mahler created his last works on Italian soil, the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella visited the wooden hut in Dobbiaco (Toblach) where the nine and tenth symphonies were conceived.
He then took a walk in the meadow that formed Mahler’s view as he composed.
If all the countries have the chance to have him as president… the world would be better.
Gustav Mahler did not create his last works on Italian soil, because South-Tyrol was not Italian territory at that time. It was annexed to (the Kingdom of) Italy at the end of the First Word War.
I’ve visited this ‘hut’, too, as his other ‘little houses’ in Austria. At the inn we had lunch, the clientele were definitely Austrian, not Italian. And it seemed like the people were from the early 20th century not 2002.
Oh Yes, yes! Italians love Mahler!
“Today, everybody conducts Mahler. Mahler pays well. Even if you do not conduct a good performance of a Mahler symphony, the success is still there because […] all the finales are very loud […]. The public generally doesn’t understand if it’s a good performance or not so good […]
“But my attitude toward Mahler can change. I’m not young, but it’s possible I will change my mind and become a Mahler fan. You never know.”
““Very seldom do young conductors do Bruckner because his music is more complicated, more difficult than Mahler.”
“I have some problems with [Mahler’s] symphonies […] Sometimes for ten minutes of paradise, you have twenty minutes of—well, something else, I don’t know what. […] there are always so many young conductors who do Mahler because the loud finales will always get you lots of applause.”
(Riccardo Muti)
It’s a pity that people focus on Mahler’s symphonies and not on his songs.
Very well put. Take the finale of the ninth symphony for example. You hit the nail on the head there.
Very disingenuous and silly, the Italian opera composers he conducts ad nauseam all end with very cheap loud finales to get applause. He should be honest and say he’s not capable of conducting Mahler and not make it sound like Mascagni.
I once heard Muti conduct Mahler 4 with the Vienna Philharmonic and it sounded exactly as if he didn’t understand or like it much. It takes a special talent to make Mahler that dull, especially with that orchestra.
He has a very special talent for making any composer sound dull, even Verdi these days.
Simon Rattle is another one to not understand IV. Once I sat through a performance with the Berliner and the piece sounded as if written by a student for an exam.
Talking of Italians, was there a finer Mahler conductor than the late Claudio Abbado?
Kubelik
Wasn’t Giulini comparably good in Mahler?
Chailly.
The hut is located within a zoo.
Why?
Story goes that the director was someone with a deep contempt for Mahler’s symphonies, especially nr 6 and 8.
I’ve written about this before on this site. How, in the summer of 1968, I sought out Mahler’s composition hut outside of
Dobbiaco, Italy.
It was being used as a soup kitchen for a youth work crew.
Inside, a lovely, and gracious, Italian lady presided over a very large steaming kettle…. If you must know…it was minestrone.
Well, no communions that day….
Moreover, I am greatly gladdened to see that Mahler’s earlier “hut” (really more like a fortress…) at Maiernigg, has been turned into a significant museum. There are tales I could tell
about my visit there, also in 1968…perhaps another time….
Maybe Mahler raped one or more of the Trenker maidens to forget about Alma, who was then dating Gropius.
After Mahler’s death, the premises of the hut were turned into a zoo surrounded by wild boars and goats to commemorate the Viennese bastard who showed so little respect to the locals of Toblach.
What in the world would make you type something so utterly idiotic?
Visits to Toblach between 2014 and 2024.
https://en.wikipedia-on-ipfs.org/wiki/Gustav_Mahler_Stube
Yes, we know about the petting zoo. What about you’re “maybe” over Mahler raping a Trenker maiden? . . . That, my good “Lord”, is an idiotic thing to type out.
I was able to visit the hut in the 80s during the early years of the Mahler Festival. Like some other posters, that summer I had made a “pilgrimage” of all 3 hüschen.
It’s on private land but not really in the middle of a zoo, more of a lovely nature preserve.
I went back to Toblach last year and read that for the time being the property owners are not allowing access to the public. Perhaps this has changed or will at some time in the future.
In any case, it’s a beautiful part of the world, no matter what country currently claims it.
Mahler could best compose in natural surroundings, far away from the city with all its complexities, strife, gossip, pressures, and an orchestra that he had to wake-up at the rehearsels.
The surrounding landscape has significantly changed since Mahler’s days – and not only due to Mahler having “composed the landscape away” but mostly due to WWI infrastructure, automobiles and roads, mass tourism (mountain-E-biking), and climate-change with associated forest degradation caused by massive bark beetle infestation.
Most of the grand hotels have been given up completely or have been converted into youth hostels, like in the case of Toblach.
There is something very morbid about the whole region and its relic cult surrounding Mahler.
It is difficult for a serious Mahler lover to understand why the Gustav Mahler Stub’n is mostly closed and why the composing hut is associated with this petting zoo!
Where do you get this stuff? The landscape changing had nothing to do with what Mahler composed. As for the rest of it, I’m at a loss to even respond. The short answer is that it’s not 1910 any more. It’s now nearly 2025. Cars, infrastructure, roads, e-bikes and bark beetles happen – they happen most anywhere. You could go to Lake Tahoe and find it to be equally ‘morbid’, if not more so. As for your last paragraph, the answer is simple: they’re privately owned. It’s an unfortunate situation, but there you have it. The Bayreuth-ization of Mahler-dom hasn’t quite happened everywhere. Thank goodness. As for your calling the whole region “morbid”, I’m sure there are many people would love to afford the luxury of even going there. I’m one of those people – living on a very fixed income.
. . . and I believe “Das Lied von der Erde” as well. Hardly a minor work.
Together with the first mvts of IX and X, certainly his greatest work. In that stunning song cycle he conveys the universal depth of the human condition.
For all you Mahler cult followers, here is a list for New York City so eat your heart out —
□ Hotel Majestic (115 Central Park West) 11th floor suite (Mahler & Alma were here, 1908, where he heard the drum beats in 10th Symphony), now an apartment building.
□ The Old Met (1411 Broadway), demolished in 1967, now an office building.
□ Marcella Sembrich’s house at The Kenilworth (151 Central Park West), where the Mahlers attended 1908 Christmas party, where the tree caught on fire! Still there.
□ Hotel Savoy (767 Fifth Avenue), where the Mahlers moved before inaugural NY Phil season in 1909. Other hotel guests were Caruso and Sembrich. Now an Apple store.
□ Plaza Hotel (768 Fifth Ave), opened in 1907, frequent stopover by Mahler in the Palm Court to have drinks with Caruso.
□ Carnegie Hall (881 7th Ave)
□ Mary Sheldon’s House (24 East 38th), chief sponsor of Mahler’s NY trip (derided by Walter Damrosch of the rival orchestra), now an apartment building.
□ Tiffany Residence (898 Madison Ave) – son of jeweller Tiffany, where the Mahlers were guests.
□ Opium Den (today’s Chinatown) – the Mahlers’ day excursion escorted by a publisher and an armed detective.
□ Jewish Quarter (Lower East Side)
□ Seance at Lincoln Square Arcade (1945 Broadway & Columbus, next to today’s David Geffen Hall)
□ Mahler’s subway stop (Columbus Circle)
□ Brooklyn Academy of Music (30 Lafayette Ave) – where Mahler conducted his first NY Phil concert on 12/3/1909 (Beethoven Violin Concerto with Maude Powell)
□ Hotel Netherland (781 Fifth Ave) – Mahler met Busoni in 1910. now Sherry-Netherland Hotel
Comparing Manhattan sites to Styria is a case of apples and oranges. Toblach is the type of place Mahler went to escape big city life. Personally, I don’t care what hotel Mahler met Busoni in. Some of the other locales I’ve been to, particularly Carnegie Hall (which is truly great).