
Naturlaut is a respected journal of Mahler studies, which has been active for more than a decade. Originally published as a quarterly (March, June, September and December), the schedule shifted in 2009 to two double issues each year. Naturlaut contains new research, reports on performances and conferences, reviews of publications and performances, and other information related to Mahler and his music, as well as other composers of his time or influenced by Mahler.
Why the Name Naturlaut?
Mahler wrote a rather simple phrase over the first bars of his First Symphony, "Wie ein Naturlaut," which can be loosely translated into "as if spoken by nature". The composer claimed it to be the soul of all his symphonic works, as Gabriel Engel stated in his biography, Gustav Mahler: Song Symphonist.

"That Nature embraces everything that is at once awesome, magnificent, and lovable, nobody seems to grasp. It seems so strange to me that most people, when they mention the word Nature in connection with art, imply only flowers, birds, the fragrance of the woods, etc. No one seems to think of the mighty underlying mystery, the god Dionysus, the great Pan; and just that mystery is the burden of my phrase, Wie Ein Naturlaut. That, if anything, is my program, or the secret of my composition." (Mahler was writing this to a prominent critic.) "My music is always the voice of Nature sounding in tone, an idea in reality synonymous with the concept so aptly described by von Bülow as 'the symphonic problem.' The validity of any other sort of 'program' I do not recognize, at any rate, not for my work. If I have now and then affixed titles to some movements of my symphonies I intended them only to assist the listener along some general path of fruitful reaction. But if the clarity of the impression I desire to create seems impossible of attainment without the aid of an actual text, I do not hesitate to use the human voice in my symphonies; for music and poetry together are a combination capable of realizing the most mystic conception. Through them the world, Nature as a whole, is released from its profound silence and opens its lips in song."
This phrase appropriately sums up the attraction and the essence of Mahler's works, hence the name for the journal.
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Index of Items Published in Naturlaut
- [+] Vol 1., No. 1 (June 2002)
- Avik Gilboa, "Avik Gilboa Interviewing Jack Diether" (featured article)
- Nathan Mead, "A Member Remembers...
- Susan Filler, "China Chronicle
- "Recipe for Gustav's Favorite Pastry: Apfelkuchen"
- [+] Vol 1, No. 2 (September 2002)
- Jan Hoeper and Teng-Leong Chew, "Mahler and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: A Century in Performance"
- Jan Hoeper, "Lob des Hohen Verstands (In Praise of High Intellect)" (Chicago press reaction to the first Mahler performance in 1907)
- Avik Gilboa, "Conversation with Deryck Cooke about Mahler's Tenth Symphony" (featured article)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Immer mit bewegter Empfindung"
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Performing Versions of the Tenth Symphony" (featured article)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Mahler Around the Globe"
- Bill Drewett, "A Member Remembers... Sandwiched and Rattled by Mahler"
- [+] Vol. 1, No. 3 (December 2002)
- "Takashi Asahina: A Life with Bruckner for Thirty Years" (interview translated by Daisuke Tsuruta)
- Gabriel Engel, "With Hammer and Cowbells: Mahler's Sixth Comes to America (1948)" (featured article)
- Warren Storey Smith, "Mahler's Sixth: Rare Symphonic Work Impresses Critics in First American Performance (1947)"
- Louis Biancolli, "Mahler's Symphony is Cheered At Last (1954)"
- "Alma Mahler on the Completion of the Sixth Symphony"
- Borna Bonakdarpour, "Finding Gustav Mahler"
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Die Drei Pintos: James Zychowicz and the New Edition"
- Bill Drewett, "Of Note"
- [+] Vol. 1, No. 4 (March 2003)
- James L. Zychowicz, "Die drei Pintos Reconsidered: Some Thoughts on Mahler's Opera" (featured article)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Lost to the World, by Tom Adler" (book review)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "MahlerFest XVI: A Pilgrim's Journal" (concert review)
- Jan Hoeper, "A Literary Link Between Mahler's Early Poetry and Symphony No. 2
- James L. Zychowicz and Susan M. Filler, "The Newly Discovered Source for Mahler's First Symphony: Issues of Context" (featured article)
- [+] Vol. 2, No. 1 (June 2003)
- Susan M. Filler, "Gustav Mahler's Unknown Scherzo in C Minor and Presto in F Major" (featured article)
- Winthrop Sargeant, "Mahler - Last of the Romantics (1940)"
- Mary Ryan, "Mahler Performance in History"
- Klaus Pringsheim, "My Recollections of Gustav Mahler (1958)"
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Mahlerian Camaraderie in Elgin, Illinois" (concert review)
- Susan M. Filler, "How to be an Angel in Mahler's Eighth Symphony" (concert review)
- [+] Vol. 2, No. 2 (September 2003)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "In Retrospect: World Premiere of Clinton Carpenter's Completion of Mahler's Tenth Symphony" (featured article/interview)
- John Milsom, "Object Lesson in Music History: Mahler's Baton"
- Donald Mitchell, "Mahler and Freud"
- Jan Hoeper, "The Rise and Fall of the Indiana University Mahler Group"
- Petra Fey, "The Beautiful Resurrection of an Old Tale"
- Susan M. Filler, "The Second Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, Mahler, and Selected Contemporaries, The Symphony Repertoire, volume IV, by Peter A. Brown" (book review)
- [+] Vol. 2, No. 3 (December 2003)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Mahler in Art: 'What the Night Tells Me...'"
- Parks Grant, "Mahler's Second Symphony" (featured article)
- Mike Smith, "Once Upon a Time: My Florida-Chicago Connection and First Mahler Encounter"
- Matthew E. Ferris, "Mahler, Coryphaeus of Modernism"
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 10" (concert review)
- Mike Smith, "Gustav Mahler Zehnte Symphonie: Entstehung, Analyse, Rezeption, by Jorg Rothkamm" (book review)
- David Ellis, "Mahler (and Brahms) at the Edinbrugh Festival" (concert review)
- Clinton A. Carpenter, "The Tenth Symphony - A Continuing Study (Part I)" (featured article)
- [+] Vol. 2, No. 4 (March 2004)
- Susan M. Filler, "Mahler's Third Symphony" (featured article)
- Jan Hoeper, "'Pan Awakes': Parody, Parables, and Paradox"
- Igor Grobman, "MahlerFest XVII: An Intense Mahlerian Feast" (concert review)
- Clinton A. Carpenter, "The Tenth Symphony - A Continuing Study (Part II)" (featured article)
- James Cyphers, "New Recordings Cast Light on Bruckner's Ninth Symphony" (featured article)
- Hilliard Levinson, "A Member Remembers..."
- Lynne Chang, "To The Age Its Arts, To Art Its Freedom"
- [+] Vol. 3, No. 1 (June 2004)
- Jan Hoeper, "Emil Orlik and Gustav Mahler - A Meeting of Minds"
- Salvatore Calomino, "Veni Creator Spiritus and Gustav Mahler's Eighth Symphony" (featured article)
- Susan M. Filler, "The Correct Movement Order in Mahler's Sixth Symphony, by Gilbert Kaplan" (book review)
- Steven Coburn, "Gustav Mahler: Briefe und musikautographen aus den Moldenhauer-Archiven in der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek" (book review)
- Nika Dewlin, "Arnold Schoenberg's Debt to Mahler" (featured article)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "A Package of Mahler, Songs and Friendship" (concert review)
- Susan M. Filler, "In Mahler's Footsteps in Bohemia and Moravia" (book review)
- [+] Vol. 3, No. 2 (September 2004)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "The Inner Movements of the Sixth Symphony: Order or Chaos?"
- James L. Zychowicz, "Mahler/Mahlered/Mahlered: Images of Mahler in Popular Culture" (featured article)
- Ernst J. M. Lert, "The Conductor Gustav Mahler: A Psychological Study" (featured article)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "The Identity of the Chinese Poem Mahler adapted for 'Von der Jugend'" (featured article)
- [+] Vol. 3, No. 3 (December 2004)
- James L. Zychowicz, "Mahler's Seventh Symphony Revisited" (featured article)
- James L. Zychowicz, "Interpreting Mahler's Seventh Symphony" (recording review)
- Stan Ruttenberg, "The Colorado Mahlerfest: A Brief History" (featured article)
- Tess Crebbin, "Up Close and Personal: Meeting Jason Starr" (interview)
- [+] Vol. 3, No. 4 (March 2005)
- Salvatore Calomino, "Depiction of the Anchorites in Mahler's Eighth Symphony" (featured article)
- Grant Nebel, "Presence: Mahler and New Music" (featured article)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Gustav Mahler: Letters to His Wife, ed. by H. L. de La Grange and G. Weiss" (book review)
- Mitch Friedfeld, "Colorado MahlerFest XVIII" (concert review)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2" (recording review)
- [+] Vol. 4, No. 1 (June 2005)
- David B. Ellis, "Evocations of Mahler: 'Mahlerian' Music by Others" (featured article)
- Stuart Feder, "Mahler, Mourning and Consolation"
- John David Lamb, "Mahler through the Wrong End of the Telescope"
- Borna Bonakdarpour, "Gustav Mahler: A Life in Crisis, by Stuart Feder" (book review)
- Grant Nebel, "The Whole Motion: William Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and of Experience" (recording review)
- Mark DeVoto, "Die drei Pinto (The Three Pintos): Comic Opera in Three Acts by Carl Maria von Weber; Restored and Completed by Mahler (1887-1888)" (recording review)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "When Das Lied von der Erde Is Not Good Enough... (Glen Cortese's Chamber Orchestra Version" (music review)
- Charles Amenta, "The Opening of the Mahler Ninth Symphony and the Bernstein 'Heart-Beat' Hypothesis"
- [+] Vol. 4, No. 2 (September 2005)
- Mary Wagner, "How Mahler Brought Bach to America" (featured article)
- Salvatore Calomino, "Gustav Mahler: Lieder" (recording review)
- Eftychia Papanikolaou, "The Religious Impulse in Schumann's and Mahler's Settings of Goethe's Faust" (featured article)
- David B. Ellis, "A Member Remembers..."
- [+] Vol. 4, No. 3 (December 2005)
- James L. Zychowicz, "From Symphonic Poem to Symphony: The Evolution of Mahler's First Symphony" (featured article)
- Bruno Walter, "Bruckner and Mahler" (featured article)
- Dika Newlin, "Mahler and Beyond"
- Steven D. Coburn, "Mahler's Sketches for the Tenth Symphony" (featured article)
- [+] Vol. 4, No. 4 (March 2006)
- James L. Zychowicz, "Mahler's Sixth Symphony and Challenge of a Critical Edition: A Cautionary Tale" (featured article)
- Stephen D. Chakwin, Jr., "Mahler's Sixth Symphony in Context: What the History of Minor-Key Symphonies Can Tell Us about Mahler's Decision about Movement Order" (featured article)
- Mary Wagner, "American Performances of Mahler's Sixth Symphony" (featured article)
- Mitch Friedfeld, "Mahlerfest XVIII" (concert review)
- Stephen Francis Vasta, "Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony: Toward a Critical Discography"
- [+] Vol. 5, No. 1 (June 2006)
- Melissa Ursula Goldsmith, "Context, Theme, and Tone in Adorno's Writings about Mahler and His Music" (featured article)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Mahler's Use of 'Glissando'" (featured article)
- Mary Wagner, "Perspectives on Gustav Mahler, by Jeremy Barham" (book review)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "The Virtuoso Conductors: The Central European Tradition from Wagner to Karajan, by Raymond Holden" (book review)
- Mitch Friedfeld, "Report on Mahler Events in New York, April 2006"
- Stan Ruttenberg, "A Golden Visit to Vienna"
- [+] Vol. 5, No. 2 (September 2006)
- Steven D. Coburn, "Cyclic and Referential Elements in Mahler's Tenth Symphony" (featured article)
- [+] Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2006)
- Joseph E. Jones, "Envy and Misinterpretation: Richard Strauss and Mahler's Resistance to the Descriptive Program" (featured article)
- Salvatore Calomino, "Mahler's Saints: Medieval Devotional Figures and Their Transformation in Mahler's Symphonies" (featured article)
- Petra Frey, "The 'Resurrection' of a Troubled Neighborhood (Rütli School)"
- James L. Zychowicz, "A Further Look at Reri Grist"
- [+] Vol. 5, No. 4 (March 2007)
- Hannah Chan, "Balancing Artistic Vision, Public Taste, and Economic Reality: Gustav Mahler's Concert Programs for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1909-1911)" (featured article)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 3" (concert review)
- James L. Zychowicz, "Ludwig Karpath's Begegnung mit dem Genius" (book review)
- [+] Vol. 6, No. 1 (June 2007)
- Charles Youmans, "'My Time Will Come When His Is Over': Mahler and Strauss in the Twenty-First Century" (featured article)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Gustav Mahler and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra Tour America, by Mary H. Wagner" (book review)
- Joseph Horowitz, "Post-Classical Ensemble: The Song of the Earth"
- James L. Zychowicz, "Hugo Wolf's Orchestral Lieder"
- [+] Vol. 6, No. 2 (September 2007)
- Michael Bosworth, "Mahler in America: The Ellis Island U.S. Arrival Records for Gustav Mahler, 1907-1910"
- Donald Mitchell, "Gustav Mahler: Prospect and Retrospect" (featured article)
- Salvatore Calomino, "The Legacy of George Szell and His Performances of Works by Mahler"
- Mark Berry, "Mahler in Berlin: Spring 2007" (concert review)
- [+] Vol. 6, No. 3 (December 2007)
- James L. Zychowicz, "David Cope and His Opera Mahler"
- David Cope, Mahler: An Opera in Five Acts (libretto)
- Curtis Swanson, "Mahler and Dostoevsky"
- James L. Zychowicz, "False Readings: Mahler's First Symphony as Film Music"
- Warren Storey Smith, "Some Mahlerian Misconceptions"
- William Rosar, "Hollywood on Mahler"
- [+] Vol. 6, No. 4 (March 2008)
- James L. Zychowicz, "'To My Dear Friend Ossip Gabrilowitsch': A Score from the Premiere of Mahler's Sixth Symphony" (featured article)
- Beverly M. Christy, "Mahler's Final Illness" (featured article)
- James L. Zychowicz, "Mahler on the Internet: A First Look at MahlerCat" (featured article)
- Teng-Leong Chew, "Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4 Chamber Orchestra Version by Erwin Stein" (concert review)
- James L. Zychowicz, "Music, Technology, and Das Klagende Lied"
- [+] Vol. 7, No. 1 (June 2008)
- Edward F. Kravitt, "The Trend toward the Folklike Nationalism and Their Expression by Mahler and His Contemporaries in the Lied" (featured article)
- Michael Bosworth, "Leo Ornstein and Gustav Mahler's 'Final' New York Concert" (featured article)
- James L. Zychowicz, "Gustav Mahler: Arriving at the Standard Reference Works" (book review)
- [+] Vol. 7, No. 2 (September 2009)
- Salvatore Calomino, "Mahler's Reading: The Importance of Medieval Ideology, Eastern Religion, and Nature Philosophy for the Kindertotenlieder" (featured article)
- James L. Zychowicz, "Mahler Symphony No. 1 in D Major" (music review)
- John J. Sheinbaum, "Interpretation and Performance at the Fulcrum of Mahler Reception" (featured article)
- Richard F. Somer, "Tracking Alois (Hans) Mahler in America" (featured article)
- [+] Vol. 7, Nos. 3/4 (December 2009)
- Timothy Freeze, "The Public Concert Life of Mahler's Youth: Iglau, 1866-1875" (featured article)
- Laura Hedden, "Truth or Untruth? The Role of Repetition in Mahler's Music" (featured article)
- Francesca Draughon, "The Landscape of a Wayfaring Soul: Constructions of the Modern Subject in the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" (featured article)
- [+] Vol. 8, Nos. 1/2 (March 2010)
- Laura Dolp, "Voice, Ground and the Construction of Space in Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony" (featured article)
- Thomas Peattie, "Mahler's Distance" (featured article)
- James L. Zychowicz, "Mahler's Eighth Symphony Returns to Chicago: A Report" (concert review)
- Salvatore Calomino, "Images of the Beyond: Mahler's Kindertotenlieder and the Fulcrum of Late Nineteenth-Century Philosophy" (featured article)
- [+] Vol. 8, Nos. 3/4 (2011)
- Reinhold Behringer and Julius Eiweck, "'Wie ein Naturlaut' and Created with a Computer" (featured article)
- Salvatore Calomino, "'Mahler contra Wagner?' Further Speculations on Mahler's Intellectual Choices" (featured article)
- Jennifer Chu, "A night at the Symphony: Where Youths Contemplate Old Age and Death Dance with Life" (featured article)
- [+] Vol. 9, Nos. 1/2 (March 2012)
- Ludwig Karpath, Begegnung mit dem Genius (new translations)
- "Mahler's New Stagings," trans. and ed. by Salvatore Calomino
- "Hans Richter's Departure from the Vienna Court Opera and Gustav Mahler," trans. and ed. by Salvatore Calomino
- "Mahler as Interpreter of Beethoven," trans. and ed. by Theodore Albrecht
- "Mahler and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna," trans. and ed. by Theodore Albrecht
- "Mahler and the Title of Kammersänger," trans. and ed. by Theodore Albrecht
- Katarina Markovic, "Leashed or Unleashed, Mahler Continues to Amaze: The 'Mahler Unleashed' Festival at the New England Conservatory of Music"
- [+] Vol. 9, Nos. 3/4 (2012)
- Ludwig Karpath, Begegnung mit dem Genius (new translations)
- "How I First Made the Acquaintance of Gustav Mahler," trans. and ed. by Salvatore Calomino
- "With Mahler in Paris," trans. and ed. by Theodore Albrecht
- "Lowering the Orchestra Pit," trans. and ed. by Theodore Albrecht
- "Mahler and the Philharmonic," trans. and ed. by Theodore Albrecht
- Katarina Markovic, "Review-Article: Whose Mahler and in Whose World?" (book review)
- Kelly Dean Hansen, "A Report on MahlerFest XXV, Boulder, Colorado, 15–20 May 2012" (concert review)
- Colin Roust, "From the Webmaster's Desk"
- [+] Vol. 10, Nos. 1/2 (2013)
- Ludwig Karpath, Begegnung mit dem Genius (new translation)
- "Mahler's Appointment to Vienna and His Activity and Influence in This City," trans. and ed. by Salvatore Calomino
- [+] Vol. 10, Nos. 3/4 (2013)
- William Ritter, Études d'Art étranger (new translations)
- "A Viennese Symphonist: Monsieur Gustav Mahler," trans. and ed. by Salvatore Calomino
- "Mahler's Third Symphony," trans. and ed. by Colin Roust
- "Mahler's Fourth Symphony," trans. and ed. by Colin Roust
- "Concerning Several of the 'Idées Vivantes' of M. Camille Mauclair," trans. and ed. by Salvatore Calomino
- [+] Vol. 11, Nos. 1/2/3/4 (2017)
- William Ritter, Études d'Art étranger (new translations)
- "Concerning Several of the Idées vivantes of M. Camille Mauclair," trans. and ed. by Salvatore Calomino
- "The Mountain Labors and Gives Birth to a Rat," trans. and ed. by Colin Roust
- "The Ideal Critic," trans. and ed. by Colin Roust
- "Morality and the Critic," trans. and ed. by Colin Roust
- [+] Vol. 12, Nos. 1/2/3/4 (2018)
- Anna Bahr-Mildenburg, Memoirs (Erinnerungen) (new translations)
- "How My Stage Career Began and Developed," trans. and ed. by Salvatore Calomino
- "My First Rehearsals with Gustav Mahler," trans. and ed. by Salvatore Calomino
- "[In Remembrance of Mahler] / Recollections of Mahler," trans. and ed. by Salvatore Calomino
- "Selections from Letters by Mahler," trans. and ed. by Salvatore Calomino