The International Society of Gustav Mahler ( Internationale Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft ) is an international organization founded in 1955 in Vienna on the model of the Beethoven House in Bonn , with the aim of collecting a library and archive, preparing a critical edition of the composer's complete works and popularizing his work [1] .
History
Creating a society, the main purpose of which would be to study and promote the work of "still little-known composer" Gustav Mahler , initiated the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra . Founded in 1955, the Society was headed as a president by the famous Austrian musicologist Erwin Ratz , an outstanding conductor, student of Mahler Bruno Walter became the honorary president [1] .
Already in 1956, the first national “section” of the International Society appeared - the Gustav Mahler Society in the Netherlands , in a country with rich traditions of performing music by the composer, founded by Willem Mengelberg [1] . In the same year, similar “sections” were created in Sweden , the United States , Japan and Germany . Currently, Gustav Mahler’s societies exist in dozens of countries, but not all consider themselves to be sections of the International Society. In 1957, the International Society already had 210 members [1] .
By the beginning of the 1960s, a significant archive was assembled, which enabled the publication of a scientifically verified collected works of Mahler; The first volume of this collection ( Seventh Symphony ), edited by Erwin Ratz, was published in 1960 - the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth. In 1980, to the 25th anniversary of the Society itself, the 12th volume of this meeting was published [1] .
After Rat’s death in 1973, composer Gottfried von Einem became president of the Society, Karl Heinz Füssl, editor of Mahler’s collected works. Ainem in 1991 was replaced by Rainer Bischof, Füssl a year later - Reinhold Kubik [1] . The current president of the Society is Dr. Christian Meier [2] .
Society Gold Medal
Back in 1958, at the initiative of Erwin Ratz, the Society established the Gold Medal of Mahler ( German Mahler-Goldmedaille ) - for special merits in promoting the work of the composer. The first to receive this honorable award was the German conductor Karl Schurycht , his Dutch colleague Edward van Beinum and the Concertgebouw Orchestra led by him, Edward Flips, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra headed by him [3] .
In the 1950s, the very fact of the regular execution of Mahler’s works was costly, since the early 1970s, against the background of the Mahler boom, the Society began to pay more attention to the quality of interpretations [1] . Among the medals awarded are conductors Raphael Kubelik and Dimitris Mitropoulos (1960), Leonard Bernstein (1967), Bernard Haitink (1971), Joseph Crips (1974), Carlo Maria Giulini (1980); vocalists Krista Ludwig and Dietrich Fisher-Diskau (1980), a number of orchestras, including the Vienna Symphony (1963), the Vienna Philharmonic (1980) and the New York Philharmonic (2005) [3] . Of the Russian conductors, two were honored with this honor - Kirill Kondrashin in 1974 and Vladimir Fedoseyev in 2007 [3] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Partsch Erich Wolfgang. Geschichts-Splitter . Gesellschaft . Internationale Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft. The appeal date is July 26, 2015.
- ↑ Vorstand . Die Gesellschaft . Internationale Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft. The appeal date is August 23, 2015.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Goldmedaille Undefeated . Gesellschaft . Internationale Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft. The appeal date is July 26, 2015.