Inside Mahler's composing hut (video)

Gustav Mahler had three composing huts, as architect Keith Clarke describes in his groundbreaking study, Mahler’s Heavenly Retreats. Mahler had a particular aversion to noise – including birdsong, the barking of his architect’s dog, and the performances of nearby military bands – but also demanded that the servant who brought him his breakfast in one of his huts left via a route that meant Mahler would not see her so his train of thought would be undisturbed. “Mahler’s need for a place away from people and noise, for peace and quiet in which to compose his music, drove him to work away from his family,” says Clarke. “He arranged for the construction of workspaces, buildings built separately from his living quarters and constructed, one after another, in three different locations. They were created for him alone and visitors were not generally welcome.”

Mahler had composing huts at Steinbach (where the video above is shot), not far from Salzburg, where he wrote part of his second and all of his third symphony; Maernigg in southern Austria (symphonies four to eight); and Dobbiaco on the border of Italy and Austria (Das Lied von der Erde, his ninth symphony and sketches for the tenth). “Mahler’s Third, his Nature Symphony, is a celebration of the natural world in all its forms, its beauty, serenity and power, its comic and grotesque,” says Clarke. “The heavenly retreat at Steinbach, perhaps like no other, perfectly served Mahler’s needs. It was a laboratory for his art.” Director Ken Russell also made use of Mahler’s huts in his film on the great composer, including a scene where one of them gets burnt to a crisp.
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Mahler Week: Mahler's Heavenly Retreats

In this week's final post about Mahler and his garden office experiences, it seems fitting to focus on Mahler's Heavenly Retreats, a fabulous multimedia exploration of the composer's relationship to the komponierhäuschen where he worked on his music. It's the work of architect Keith James Clarke and is made up of a book, a DVD, a web site, and a CD. Together, they evaluate key places in Mahler's life (as well as a new documentary about Mahler's London), describe the reasons for their importance and demonstrate their associations with his music using archive photos and surveys. Here's what he says about it:

"The production of this book lies in my 30 years working as an architect while indulging a passion for the music of Gustav Mahler. As an architect, I'm filled with unease by much modern architecture — particularly monolithic tower blocks — and drawn to buildings of a more modest scale which, with their surroundings, make more allowance for human aspiration and celebration of life, something that Mahler had in a large quantity."

Keith also regularly lectures about the subject so keep an eye on his events page. Below you can see him (and the huts) in action.

Mahler Week: Sendak and Mahler's Symphony No. 3

We're launching a week-long series of posts about Mahler's close relationship with shedworking with a look at more shedworking album cover art, this time Maurice Sendak's work for RCA on Mahler's Symphony No. 3 (released in 1976) which depicts the movement called “What Night Tells Me”.

In an excellent examination of the artwork on the Mahler Archives site, Teng-Leong Chew explains that it was done in pen-and-ink and tempera, at 14¼” X 14¼” an exact fit for the album sleeve. "In the days of LPs, the physical size of the recording medium meant that the LP cover sleeves themselves were often treated as an artist’s canvas," he writes, "on which beautiful works of art that “represented” the music (most likely in abstract form), or were inspired by it, could be rendered. The child-like nature of Mahler’s Third Symphony, especially the inner movements, which are laden with fantastic images such as angels, night animals, flowers, and cuckoos, set a perfect stage for Sendak."

As Chew points out, Mahler’s silhouette in his composing hut is unmistakable. "Despite its cartoon characteristics, numerous details of the composing hut featured in the drawing match those of the composing hut in Toblach," he says, "suggesting that Sendak did not draw the little cottage out of the blue. It is amazing to note the bugle horn played by one of the night creatures on the right side of the drawing, a most easily identifiable instrument used in the third movement of the symphony."
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Mahler's Heavenly Retreats

In the same vein as Adam Sharr's marvellous monograph Heidegger's Hut, Mahler's Heavenly Retreats is a multimedia exploration of the composer's relationship to the Komponierhäuschen (or huts) where Mahler worked on his music during the summer. Created by architect Keith James Clarke, a specialist in buildings and the character of place, it's a book, a DVD, a web site, and a CD (so he's got pretty much all the bases covered - there's even a special study day on the subject in April next year in London). Keith says his goals are to evaluate key places in Mahler's life, describe the reasons for their importance and demonstrate their associations with his music using archive photos and surveys. Here's what he says about it:

"The production of this book lies in my 30 years working as an architect while indulging a passion for the music of Gustav Mahler. As an architect, I'm filled with unease by much modern architecture — particularly monolithic tower blocks — and drawn to buildings of a more modest scale which, with their surroundings, make more allowance for human aspiration and celebration of life, something that Mahler had in a large quantity.

"Its subtitle is Encounters with the master's composing houses, and is primarily aimed at music lovers and Mahler enthusiasts. Having said that, I think many others will find it a thought-provoking introduction to this great man of music. In particular, readers with an eye for architecture and the environment will find this book of special interest."

Mahler week: Mahler's Toblach composing hut disgrace

For the many people who voiced their objection to the restoration plans for Roald Dahl's writing shed, this video visit by percusionist and composer Nebojsa Zivkovic over the summer indicates what can happen when no action is taken. Zivkovic visited the hut in Toblach where Mahler wrote Das Lied von Der Erde and his 9th and 10th sympbones and as you can see it's in a rotten state of disrepair. For a place of international importance, it's an absolute disgrace that it is not being better cared for - compare it, for example, to Mahler's other two main composing huts which are explored at this site.

You can read an interesting personal account of Mahler's Toblach shed from a member of the family that rented him the hut here and 'explore' the hut in 3D below.


Gustav Mahler composers cottage in South Tyrol (Bolzano-Bozen)
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Mahler Week: Mahler's Komponierhäuschen at Steinbach

Mahler's first composing hut was in Steinbach near Salzburg and he wrote lots of his second and third symphonies here as well as some of his Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs. “Until I went to Steinbach I didn't know how to provide myself, during the little time at my disposal, with the peace and solitude I need,” he wrote.

Mahler hired Franz Lösch to build it in 1894 on the shore of the Attersee. According to Lösch: "[Mahler] would always say: the lake had its own language, the lake talked to him. From up at the inn he couldn't hear it, so he needed to have a little house right by the shore. When he heard the lake, he composed more easily, and the compositions flowed fully formed from his head." Nicely renovated now, it was briefly used as a toilet block.
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Mahler's Heavenly Retreats: upcoming events

Mahler's Heavenly Retreats is a real labour of love by architect and Mahler enthusiast Keith James Clarke. Keith also has a series of talks coming up about Mahler and his shedlike structures in which he worked which promise to be fascinating. The next one is:

Encounters with the master's Composing Houses.
This pre-concert talk will consider the building, its surroundings and associations where Mahler created his 8th Symphony in E flat major. This work will be performed later in the evening at St Paul's Cathedral. No reservations required for the lecture, but tickets for the concert are available from the City of London Festival.
Venue: Gresham College, Barnard's Inn Hall, Holborn, London, EC1N 2HH
Date: Wednesday 9th July 2008
Time: Talk 18.00-19.00 at Barnard's Inn Hall and will be followed by a reception

Gustav Mahler and Shedworking: a lecture

Architect Keith James Clarke - author of the book, CD and DVD 'Mahler's Heavenly Retreats' - will be talking about the Summer Retreat in Steinbach, Austria, where Gustav Mahler wrote many of his finest works on 24 November at 7.30pm (refreshments at 7pm) at the Barbican Library in London. Tickets are free and available in advance from Barbican Library on 020 7638 0569. There will also be performed readings by actor Richard Burnip. Keith recently gave a lecture on the subject at Gresham College and you can read a transcript of it here. More on Mahler on Shedworking here.

Mahler's composing hut

There's a nice piece about Gustav Mahler's composing hut (in fact his various composing huts) at the blog of The New Yorker's music Paul Ross. This is the one in Steinbach, above, with some lovely views of mountains and the lake, and also the one up in the Tyrol at Doblach. He wrote his second symphony and bits of the third at Steinbach and Das Lied von der Erde at Doblach. In the opening sequence of Ken Russell's film Mahler, one of Mahler's huts (the third, at Maiernigg) gets burnt to a crisp. Not the real one.

Mahler Week: Mahler's Maiernigg hut

In stark contrast to the state of the Toblach hut featured yesterday on Shedworking, Mahler's lovely composing hut/komponierhäuschen (he called it his 'study') at Maiernigg am Wörthersee is very well looked after indeed. It was built in 1900 and he composed inside - his fifth, six, seventh and eighth symphonies among others - until 1907 when he moved away after the death of his daughter Maria. It's full of interesting memorabilia including letters, postcards and photographs, as well as his music playing in the background. There are guided tours in English, French and German. More details and photos of the hut here.

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Shedworking: album cover art

While there are several songs which discuss the issue of sheds and shedworking, the number of sheds which appear on the covers of albums is rather smaller. One notable exception is Mahler Symphony 10: Recomposed by Mathew Herbert, pictured above. What Herbert does is take the unfinished 10th and then reworks it in various different death-based locations including a coffin, a hearse and Mahler's composing hut in Toblach. The record itself received plenty of critical praise and below in the video Herbert talks about its construction.

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Benjamin Britten: shedworker

The list of composers who wrote in their sheds is a sizeable one and includes Mahler, Grieg, Mozart and Haydn. Among their number is Benjamin Britten whose composing shed at his home in Horham, Suffolk, is a Grade II listed building. It is made of brick with a pantile roof and one window (with attractive rural views) and was built in the 1970s: inside, he wrote Death in Venice, Phaedra and his Third String Quartet. Interestingly, the listing is based on historic rather than architectural importance.
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Top 10 shedworking films - part 1

Shedworking reader Starskier suggested that we put together a list of the top 10 films featuring shedworking atmospheres. So here are our first five:
1. Notes From A Scandal (2006)
Pottery teacher Sheba Hart not only has an impressively-kitted out studio at her school, she also has a very nice shed at the bottom of her garden at home which is pleasantly bohemian without being too much.2. Mahler (1974)
Ken Russell's look at the great composer's life includes a dramatic scene when one of his composing huts (he had three) whooshes up in flames.
3. The Green Man (1956)
Alastair Sim's clockmaking terrorist has a shed workshop in his back garden from where he and his Scottish accomplice McKechnie plot the end of pompous MP Sir Gregory Upshott.4. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Alec Guiness's young Henry D'Ascoyne is keen on photography (and sherry) and enjoys them both in a shed in the grounds of his country estate - until Dennis Price's Louis turns the shed into a bomb...5. Grow Your Own
A year in the life of the Blacktree Road alloments and its allotmenteers - including newcomers - features many fine sheds and a draconian rule that all sheds must be painted the same colour

We'll bring you the next five in the New Year, but if you have any suggestions, please do leave them as comments or email direct. The image at the top of this post is courtesy of The Shed at Hovingham, near York, a first class bijou venue for poetry and music which also puts on films and hands out free popcorn.

Composers' rooms

Composers' rooms is a great series on BBC Radio 3 which interviews composers about the rooms in which they work (Mozart, Mahler, Britten, and Grieg are among the many other bighitters already featured on Shedworking). Naturally, some of them do this in garden offices such as Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Roxanna Panufnik, Rolf Wallin and Robin Holloway (a snippet of which is below). There are other soundclouds from the show here --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Roxanna Panufnik: shedworker

Composer Roxanna Panufnik is a committed shedworker according to the Catholic Herald which describes her garden office as "an urban response to Mahler’s woodland Komponienhut". Here's a snippet: She lives in Barnes, beside the Common, in an enclave of sedate Edwardian villas with names like Forest Dell or Combhaven. And juggling her creative life with that of a wife and mother she has her own small haven of an office at the bottom of the garden where she generates a feisty eclectic range of work across most genres: chamber, opera, song, orchestral.
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Joseph Haydn: shedworker

The list of composers who were shedworkers is a long one (Grieg, Mahler, Birtwistle, etc) and last week's Name That Shed celebrated another in that list, Joseph Haydn. In his composing hut  he wrote several of his great creations on Bürgerspitalgasse, Eisenstadt. It is surrounded by his well-kept (and now recreated) herb garden. Haydn and his wife Maria Anna Aloisia bought the house in 1766 and the wooden hut was already on site, though Mrs Haydn did a lot of work in the garden, especially the vegetable patch. The hut is open to visitors on a guided tour of the house. More details from the Haydn Museum and an excellent book Das Haydn-Kräutergärtlein by Sigrid Weiß.
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National Shed Day/Week

Wilco at shedblog - the blog of readersheds.co.uk has come up with the great idea of running a National Shed Day or Week. All that remains now is to decide when to celebrate the event. The birthday of a famous shedowner (Mahler, Dahl, Pullman) perhaps? Or the anniversary of a milestone in shed construction? Any ideas?