![[Mahler, Gustav. (1860–1911] Walter, Bruno. (1876–1962) Mahler Symphony no. 4 - Autograph Musical Quotation with Photograph](http://www.schubertiademusic.com/cdn/shop/files/28Mahler_2C_Gustav_29_Walter_2C_Bruno_Mahler_Symphony_no._4_AMQS_23447a.jpg?v=1722190775)
![[Mahler, Gustav. (1860–1911] Walter, Bruno. (1876–1962) Mahler Symphony no. 4 - Autograph Musical Quotation with Photograph](http://www.schubertiademusic.com/cdn/shop/files/28Mahler_2C_Gustav_29_Walter_2C_Bruno_Mahler_Symphony_no._4_AMQS_23447c.jpg?v=1722190774)
![[Mahler, Gustav. (1860–1911] Walter, Bruno. (1876–1962) Mahler Symphony no. 4 - Autograph Musical Quotation with Photograph](http://www.schubertiademusic.com/cdn/shop/files/28Mahler_2C_Gustav_29_Walter_2C_Bruno_Mahler_Symphony_no._4_AMQS_23447b.jpg?v=1722190774)
[Mahler, Gustav. (1860–1911] Walter, Bruno. (1876–1962). Mahler Symphony no. 4 - Autograph Musical Quotation with Photograph. Autograph musical quotation from the great German conductor closely associated with Mahler, whose music he helped establish in the repertory. Walter has penned the theme from the first movement of Mahler's Symphony no. 4 to the head of a program sheet from the Philadelphia Orchestra's first ever performance of the work, which Walter conducted with soprano Desi Halban, in January, 1946. Walter has penned a note around the quotation, inscribing "Dear Mr. Wannemacher! [possibly a misspelling of a member of the famous Philadelphia Wanamaker family?] Please accept this quotation as an expression of gratitude for your very kind letter. With best greetings cordially yours Bruno Walter." Matted together with a sepia portrait photograph of Walter, to an overall size of 9.5 x 19.75 inches. Program toned, lightly creased, unexamined out of frame, but apparently in fine condition.
Walter first met Mahler at the Hamburg Opera, where he held his first position as a chorus director. He became closely associated with Mahler and from 1901 on, worked as his assistant at the Vienna Hofoper. He conducted the premiere of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde in 1911, and the premiere of the Symphony no. 9 in 1912, after Mahler's death. Walter also published a piano-four-hands arrangement of Mahler's Symphony no. 2 ca. 1901, a few years after its publication for orchestra.
The Fourth occupies a unique place among Gustav Mahler’s nine symphonies. From its opening sleigh bells, it pulls us into a bright, exuberant drama- a song-symphony of occasional sardonic humor, frivolity, introspection, and ultimate innocence. Its instrumentation suggests a light, pared-down classicism in which the low brass voices of the trombones and tuba are conspicuously absent. Mahler described the Fourth Symphony’s unique atmosphere this way:
"Imagine the uniform blue of the sky…Occasionally…it darkens and becomes phantasmagorical and terrifying: but it is not that it becomes overcast, for the sun continues to shine in its eternal blue, only to us it suddenly seems horrific, just as, on the most beautiful day in a sunlit forest, one can be seized with panic and terror." Three teasing pickup notes at the start of the present quotation usher in the ebullient first theme, which, as the story goes, Mahler told the violins to savor, as if they were preparing to launch into a Viennese waltz.
[Mahler, Gustav. (1860–1911] Walter, Bruno. (1876–1962). Mahler Symphony no. 4 - Autograph Musical Quotation with Photograph. Autograph musical quotation from the great German conductor closely associated with Mahler, whose music he helped establish in the repertory. Walter has penned the theme from the first movement of Mahler's Symphony no. 4 to the head of a program sheet from the Philadelphia Orchestra's first ever performance of the work, which Walter conducted with soprano Desi Halban, in January, 1946. Walter has penned a note around the quotation, inscribing "Dear Mr. Wannemacher! [possibly a misspelling of a member of the famous Philadelphia Wanamaker family?] Please accept this quotation as an expression of gratitude for your very kind letter. With best greetings cordially yours Bruno Walter." Matted together with a sepia portrait photograph of Walter, to an overall size of 9.5 x 19.75 inches. Program toned, lightly creased, unexamined out of frame, but apparently in fine condition.
Walter first met Mahler at the Hamburg Opera, where he held his first position as a chorus director. He became closely associated with Mahler and from 1901 on, worked as his assistant at the Vienna Hofoper. He conducted the premiere of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde in 1911, and the premiere of the Symphony no. 9 in 1912, after Mahler's death. Walter also published a piano-four-hands arrangement of Mahler's Symphony no. 2 ca. 1901, a few years after its publication for orchestra.
The Fourth occupies a unique place among Gustav Mahler’s nine symphonies. From its opening sleigh bells, it pulls us into a bright, exuberant drama- a song-symphony of occasional sardonic humor, frivolity, introspection, and ultimate innocence. Its instrumentation suggests a light, pared-down classicism in which the low brass voices of the trombones and tuba are conspicuously absent. Mahler described the Fourth Symphony’s unique atmosphere this way:
"Imagine the uniform blue of the sky…Occasionally…it darkens and becomes phantasmagorical and terrifying: but it is not that it becomes overcast, for the sun continues to shine in its eternal blue, only to us it suddenly seems horrific, just as, on the most beautiful day in a sunlit forest, one can be seized with panic and terror." Three teasing pickup notes at the start of the present quotation usher in the ebullient first theme, which, as the story goes, Mahler told the violins to savor, as if they were preparing to launch into a Viennese waltz.