
The Correspondence between Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius, 1910–1964
“To me, you are art.”
Analysis of Source Material and Annotated Hybrid Edition. Part 1: 1910–1914
In summer 1910, the young, musically trained Alma Mahler (1879–1964) made the acquaintance of the then still unknown architect and future founder of the Bauhaus Walter Gropius (1883–1969). Upon learning of their liaison, Gustav Mahler reversed his decision forbidding his young bride to compose music – one of the terms of their marriage. From that point on, he supported her musical development and ambitions as a composer.
The Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin possesses a collection of correspondence, comprising some 950 letters from Alma Mahler and approximately 310 drafts by Walter Gropius exchanged between 1910 and 1964. Not only do these provide intriguing insights into Mahler’s work and self-image as a composer, but also her extensive activities as a patroness of the arts and organiser of musical and cultural life in the first half of the 20th century. Her correspondence with Alban Berg and Arnold Schönberg has meanwhile revealed how much Alma Mahler influenced the music of the early 20th century as a cultural figure. Indeed, without her, even the reception of Gustav Mahler’s works would have turned out quite differently.
In her letters to Walter Gropius, Alma Mahler not only shines light on her obscured biography by describing her life with rare candour, but also offers enlightening details on musical and architectural history from the 1910s to the 1950s. Alma Mahler’s strong influence is evident in her active involvement with Gropius’s early designs, her suggestions, the foreign literature she sent him for inspiration, arranged orders and contacts with clients, and her insistence on outstanding artistic output. Their correspondence also sheds light on the development of Gropius’s philosophy and his biographical decisions.
Of central importance to our investigation were the source materials produced between the beginning of Alma Mahler’s relationship with Walter Gropius in 1910 until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The majority of Alma Mahler’s 158 letters and the 236 drafts by Walter Gropius was almost entirely unsorted and undated. To make matters worse, Gropius’s letters were drafted in shorthand and were largely incoherent and extremely difficult to decipher. The analysis of these materials represented a highly complex philological challenge.
Efforts were made to edit all source materials produced between 1910 and 1914 as exhaustively as possible. This first part was previously published in book form as a transcription with annotations and individual comments in abbreviated form. We now present the digital edition of this work, augmented with digitalised scans of the letters and drafts alongside their transcriptions, standardised metadata, scholarly citations, theme-based and individual commentaries. The data format complies with the TEI standard based on XML, ensuring long-term storage and accessibility, and can be searched via the CorrespSearch tool. In a second and separate project phase, researchers plan to produce an analogue work, examining Mahler’s and Gropius’s correspondence from the start of World War I to 1964.
Project management: Prof Dr Jörg Rothkamm (University of Tübingen), PD Dr Annemarie Jaeggi (Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin)
Research associates: Dr Fabian Kurze (University of Tübingen), Dr Adriana Kapsreiter (Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin)
External funding: German Research Foundation (DFG), funding period: 1 March 2019 – 31 March 2023
More information on the digital edition project: