Bruno Walter and Gustav Mahler

Bruno Walter(1876-1962 ) was the first champion and interpreter of Mahler’s music. He was only 17 when he was appointed as repetiteur and then chorus master of the Hamburg Opera of which Mahler was the director, and the two became friends as well as colleagues. Walter was born in Berlin and studied piano, composition and conducting there at the Conservatory. He was an excellent pianist and later in life accompanied the contralto Kathleen Ferrier in a series of concerts. But it is as a conductor that he is remembered, holding important positions with leading European orchestras and eventually making many recordings with the New York Philharmonic and The Colombia Orchestra, a special recording ensemble created for him.

His aim was to balance sensitivity with musical precision, evident in his recordings of Mahler’s work. He adored Mahler and indeed became his musical executor. Introducing the musical world to music that at first seemed strange and savage, wholly indulgent to some, but increasingly under his baton, music which belonged and represented the turbulent age in which it was composed, he became the foremost exponent of Mahler’s work. Working with the composer and exposed to his rehearsal methods, he also learned more about himself as an artist. ‘There was much to learn for a lad with my questionable tendency to neglect musical correctness for the sake of feeling’.

I have his recording of the 2nd.Symphony(1958) as I have mentioned, coupled with the 1st. Compared to the passion and lyricism of the Barbirolli and Berlin Philharmonic live performance(1962), for me Walter lacks warmth, but then it was recorded in the sterile acoustics of the Carnegie Hall and that’s enough to knock the bloom off anything.

Without Walter’s advocacy – even idolatry as he confessed – Mahler’s slow acceptance by the public might never have happened. Now he can be regularly heard in the concert halls of the world. I heard Bruno Walter conduct on his first British tour after the 39-45 war, in Watford Town Hall, the venue for many recordings in the 50’s and 60’s. I don’t recall the programme, but I remember him. A quiet, undemonstrative presence, as much caressing as conducting the music. One of the greats.

B.R.