Mahler - Symphony No 10 (ed Cooke)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Sir Simon Rattle

EMI 556972-2 Buy now

(77' · DDD)

Recorded live 1999.

Over the years, Rattle has performed the work nearly 100 times, far more often than anyone else. Wooed by Berlin, he repeatedly offered them ‘Mahler ed Cooke’ and was repulsed. He made his Berlin conducting debut with the Sixth. But, after the announcement in June 1999 that he had won the orchestra’s vote in a head-to-head with Daniel Barenboim, he celebrated with two concert performances of the Tenth. A composite version is presented here. As always, Rattle obtains some devastatingly quiet string-playing, and technical standards are unprecedentedly high insofar as the revised performing version is concerned. Indeed, the danger that clinical precision will result in expressive coolness isn’t immediately dispelled by the self-confident meatiness of the violas at the start. We aren’t used to hearing the line immaculately tuned, with every accent clearly defined. The tempo is broader than before and, despite Rattle’s characteristic determination to articulate every detail, the mood is, at first, comparatively serene, even Olympian. Could Rattle be succumbing to the Karajan effect? But no – somehow he squares the circle. The neurotic trills, jabbing dissonances and tortuous counterpoint are relished as never before, within the context of a schizoid Adagio in which the Brucknerian string-writing is never undersold.

The conductor has not radically changed his approach to the rest of the work. As you might expect, the scherzos have greater security and verve. Their strange, hallucinatory choppiness is better served, although parts of the fourth movement remain perplexing despite the superb crispness and clarity of inner parts. More than ever, everything leads inexorably to the cathartic finale, brought off with a searing intensity that has you forgetting the relative baldness of the invention.

Berlin’s Philharmonie isn’t the easiest venue: with everything miked close, climaxes can turn oppressive but the results here are very credible and offer no grounds for hesitation. In short, this new version sweeps the board even more convincingly than his old (Bournemouth) one. Rattle makes the strongest case for an astonishing piece of revivification that only the most die-hard purists will resist.