50th Anniversary death of Bruno Walter

[barry guerrero]

"Who would have conducted the 9th and Das Lied  in 1911 and 1912 if Walter didn't?"

I suppose Klemperer didn't have an orchestra of his own at that time, but certainly Mengelberg was familiar enough with Mahler's music to have just as easily done the job.

I have one other slight issue with some of the conversations that come up: I don't think that we should assume that Alma was always wrong. All of these people were very strong willed people, including Walter. The fashionable, 'beat up on Alma parade' likes to believe that she was wrong on virtually every single issue. I don't buy that.

[Prospero]

I agree with Barry on Alma.

I personally think Alma's note to Mengelberg, I believe, about the order of the movements of the 6th to be quite valid. Much discussion on the issue of course, but along with Tennstedt, I find the slow movement 3rd makes emotional sense.

And Alma did keep the manuscript and allow the 10th facsimile of 1924, and her response to the Cooke/Goldschmidt BBC program on the 10th shows real response to the greatness of the music, late in life, and she encouraged its performance  after that.

A very remarkable woman in many ways. She must have been one of the most fascinating women of the era.

Tom in Vermont