Handwritten music worth 130 billion VND

The 'greatest piece of music' ever to be auctioned in recent decades has just been sold for a new world record price - 4.5 million pounds (equivalent to more than 130 billion VND).

A handwritten score by Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) has been described by manuscript experts as the “greatest piece of music” to come to auction in decades. It has just sold for a world record price of £4.5 million (equivalent to more than 130 billion VND).

The piece is Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2, which is 232 pages long and requires a 90-piece orchestra to perform in 90 minutes.

When it was auctioned, the score was in perfect condition, without any restoration work, with individual pages still separate and including erasures, corrections and annotations made by the Austrian composer himself.

A handwritten piece of music by Austrian composer Gustav Mahler has been described by experts as the “greatest” piece of music ever to be auctioned in decades. It has just been sold for a world record price of VND130 billion (US$5.6 million).

This is the handwritten score by composer Gustav Mahler himself for his Symphony No. 2, 232 pages long, requiring a 90-piece orchestra to perform in 90 minutes.

Symphony No. 2, also known as the Resurrection Symphony, is his first major work, and sees Mahler explore a major theme of life, namely death. The symphony was written between 1888 and 1894 and was first performed in public in 1895 by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (Germany).

In the career of Gustav Mahler, this is considered his greatest work. The auction held in London, England, at the end of November, created a big surprise when the piece of music was initially estimated to be worth about 3.5 million pounds.

Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (left) was first performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1895 and is considered Mahler's greatest work. Previously, the piece was owned by American economist and businessman Gilbert Kaplan (right).

The handwritten sheet music is intact, never restored, the pages are separate, including erasures, corrections and notes written by the Austrian composer himself.

The sheet music was auctioned in London, England, at the end of November.

About businessman Gilbert E. Kaplan (1941-2016), the owner of the music that was just auctioned, he was a businessman, an economist, editor of a financial magazine, and also a passionate lover of Mahler's music.

Mr. Kaplan is also an amateur conductor who can conduct an orchestra performing Mahler's Second Symphony, even though he can't read... music.

After building a successful career in economics and finance, Mr. Kaplan decided to build a second career for himself to satisfy his passion in the world of classical music. Mr. Kaplan hired famous conductors to be his music teachers, he diligently studied music 9 hours a day and only studied Mahler's Symphony No. 2.

To the amazement of experts, Kaplan was finally able to become an amateur conductor leading the world's leading symphony orchestras, such as the Vienna Philpharmonic (Austria), London Symphony (UK), Los Angeles Philharmonic (USA), St. Louis Symphony (USA) and New York Philharmonic (USA)...

Of course, he could only conduct the one symphony he had ever learned - Mahler's Symphony No. 2.

Kaplan died this year at the age of 74 after a battle with cancer. The piece now holds the world record for the most expensive piece of music ever sold at auction.

It is also the most significant piece of music ever sold at auction since Mozart's nine symphonies sold in London in 1987 for £2.5 million; and Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 2 sold in 1994 for £1.5 million.

Businessman Gilbert E. Kaplan (1941-2016).

During his lifetime, Mr. Kaplan shared his experience when he first heard Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in 1965 at Carnegie Hall, New York, USA: "I walked into that concert hall as one person, and when I walked out as a completely different person, I felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck me."

From a successful businessman, Kaplan spent 17 years of his life studying Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in depth, traveling to many countries around the world to hear performances of this symphony.

Kaplan also spent a lot of time meeting and discussing this symphony with scholars and conductors. In 1982, he decided to spend a month studying regularly, 9 hours a day, on orchestral conducting techniques, so that he could become a conductor with the ability to conduct a single symphony - the Revival Symphony.

Kaplan's serious efforts were likened to conquering Mount Everest. At the end of 1982, he was able to stand before a crowd of spectators at Lincoln Center Theater, New York, USA, as a conductor, conducting the orchestra to perform Mahler's Symphony No. 2.

Although Mahler's Symphony No. 2 sold for a record price, another piece of music up for sale at the event, believed to be handwritten by the celebrated composer Beethoven, failed to find a buyer.

Although the auction house confirmed the authenticity of the piece of music, that it was personally handwritten by Beethoven in 1817 - "Allegretto in B minor", with an expected price of 200,000 pounds (nearly 6 billion VND), but due to concerns from some experts in the field of manuscripts about the uneven, slightly curved and soft handwriting compared to Beethoven's usual handwriting, the piece of music raised doubts about its authenticity and could not find a buyer.

According to Dantri