Mahler Symphony Score Is Pulled From Auction

The autograph score of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony, due to be sold Friday at Sotheby’s London, was withdrawn hours before the auction in a private deal with the Austrian National Library.

The unfinished symphony, defaced with despairing messages to the composer’s flighty wife, has been reunited with sketches already held in Vienna, reconstituting Mahler’s valedictory work exactly as he left it at his death, 80 years ago today.

The bulk of the five-movement symphony was owned successively by Mahler’s widow, Alma, his daughter, Anna, who died in 1989, and her daughter, Marina Fistoulari. It was expected to fetch $600,000-$700,000 as the star item in Sotheby’s spring sale of music and continental manuscripts. Fears were voiced that it might disappear into private hands and be withheld from scholarly scrutiny.

The Austrian National Library protested loudly that it had previously agreed to buy the score for $480,000 from Mahler’s granddaughter. In a venomous press release, the library accused her of placing business interests above proper reverence for her ancestor.

Sotheby’s discovered that collectors and institutions alike were deterred from bidding by the impossibility of reuniting the manuscript with the Vienna sketches to form a viable entity, according to a close observer. Although a mystery buyer might have emerged on the auction floor, auctioneers approached the Austrians to accept the score at a price apparently not far above the $480,000 they had originally offered.

Proceeds of the sale will go to a newly formed Mahler and the 21st Century Assn. founded by the composer’s granddaughter with such eminent musicians as Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez and Luciano Berio. The Austrians have agreed to lend the score to the association for display at music festivals.

The private arrangement, however, is unusual for an auction house, which customarily sells works to the highest bidder. Sotheby’s says this was “obviously, an exceptional case” and that it was “delighted” at the outcome.