Mahler in Vienna (XX)-The Graz Festival Correspondence with Cosima Wagner-Completion of the Seventh Symphony The Battle for Salome-The Second Symphony in Berlin: Oskar Fried The Fifth Symphony in Trieste, Vienna, and Breslau-Preparation of the Mozart Year

Abstract In artistic matters form is the important thing, not content. A WEEK after leaving Strasbourg, the ‘two most famous [contemporary] symphonists’ came together once again at the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein Festival, which for the second time in its history was being held in Austria, this time in Graz. The choice of Graz, the capital city of the province of Styria, was not dictated by purely musical reasons, but must be understood in the context of the time as a political gesture by the nationalist German bourgeoisie. This is made clear in the speeches by local officials and manufacturers (who were financing the festival) reproduced in the Grazer Tagblatt of 1 June 1905. Since January the Tagespost, another local paper, had been publishing a series of articles entitled Meister des Taktstocks (masters of the baton) including an essay on Mahler written by the young Paul Bekker.