Beschreibung:

MAHLER, Gustav (1860-1911) Autograph sketchleaf for the Ninth Symphony, comprising two sections of the third movement, 'Rondo Burleske', n.p., n.d. [1909]. In pen and pencil on 1 1⁄2 pages, 351 x 270mm, the recto comprising approx 10 bars in short score, the verso approx 14 bars in full score, frequent cancellations and emendations, some passages scratched out. Provenance: Sotheby's, 5 December 1997, lot 115. A sketchleaf from Mahler's last completed symphony. The sketch in full score is an early version of bars 471 to 483 of the 3rd movement, while the sketch in short score comprises eight bars of unidentified (perhaps discarded) material followed by two bars similar to bars 510-511. The Rondo-Burleske is a movement of extraordinary darkness and contrapuntal virtuosity, interspersed with interludes of stillness which presage the sombre affirmation of the last movement: both the passages sketched here belong to one of these moments of reprieve. Mahler began sketching his Ninth Symphony during the summer of 1908 at his new composing studio near Toblach in the Tyrol, initially working on it simultaneously with the composition of Das Lied von der Erde; the bulk of the composition took place in the following summer. It was to be his last completed symphony (as the superstitious composer feared it would be), and it is sometimes described as not only his farewell to life but a farewell to the romantic era of composition: it was first performed only in 1912, in the year after his death.