Which Mahler 10th
Thu, Dec 1 2011, 3:25PM
Hello to Everybody. I wil be going tomorrow to hear Mahler's Tenth Symphony (12/2/2011) performed by the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall here in Manhattan. The conductor is Daniel Harding. The Cooke version will be used. I know that Mahler left behind 172 pages of a rough draft of the score. He only completed the first movement. Bernstein and many others refused to conduct anything beyond the first movement. I am fasinated by the many five movement versions. There are Cooke, Mazzetti, Carpenter. Cooke seems to dominate the recordings but I also own versions by the other two finishers. I have not compared these versions but plan to do so after I attend the concert. Any more information any of you can give would be appreciated. Thank you.
Fri, Dec 2 2011, 12:46AM
#2
RE: Which Mahler 10th
I just discovered I have the Barshai also. So far, nobody seems to be interested in te 10th so maybe Bernstein was correct. However, I still find it very interesting and will write about the performance by Harding and the NYP.
Tue, Dec 6 2011, 3:28AM
#3
RE: Which Mahler 10th
I have, in order of preference, Rattle Berlin (Cooke), Robert Olson (Wheeler), Sanderling (Cooke), and the Barshai version.
The Rattle recording is possibly the best thing he has done, totally confident and very intense, and I think the close Philharmonie sound only helps. I think the Wheeler version may be better than the Cooke, and the Naxos recording under Olson enjoys better sound than Rattle, but Rattle's is the ultimately more convincing performance. Sanderling is competent, but the Berlin Classics sound is mediocre and the musicians sound unfamiliar with the work. Barshai is as usual very dry-sounding, both emotionally and sonically, and the percussion he adds to the score doesn't sound at all Mahlerian to me.
As for the Cooke completion's musical virtues, I'd say it works. Only a snob or a fanatic would resist the 10th on principle, when there is so much terrific music in the score which would otherwise go unheard.
Fri, Dec 2 2011, 2:22AM
#4
RE: Which Mahler 10th
Daniel Harding made an outstanding recording of the 10th with the VPO, using the Cooke III version. If he repeats his performance now with the NYP, you're in for a treat, jesserj !
Fri, Dec 2 2011, 4:08AM
#5
RE: Which Mahler 10th
I just listened to Rattle Berlin. It still impresses me as very fine, but as usual with Mahler I lose concentration during the "heavenly" finale (same thing happens to me in 3 and 9). Apparently Mahler specified a flute for that famous rising line at the beginning of the finale, but I would like to hear it done on violin one day.
Sat, Dec 3 2011, 2:28PM
#6
RE: Which Mahler 10th
Carlos and everybody else, yesterday's performance of the Mahler Tenth was absolutely wonderful. The program guide said it would last 67 minutes. I told my wife that this is a mistake. I timed it at 79 minutes which is a few minutes over most Cooke performances. At times it was so sad it was difficult to stand but Mahler felt that way. Mahler actually told a friend to destroy the score and thank God he did not listen. There are major tympany thwacks (if that is the word for very loud bang) in the last movement. One more and I would have had a headache. Daniel Harding even at age 36 really understands Mahler and I would look for future Mahler recordings. I really believe that the Tenth is one of the great symphonies even though there are a few problems. It had not been performed since 1984 by the NYP. I hope you get to hear it soon in the UK by a great conductor and orchestra. I know I am rambling here but I am not a muscian but love much of serious music and feel lonely since I have very few people to talk to about music.
Sun, Dec 4 2011, 10:34PM
#7
RE: Which Mahler 10th
Mahler's 10th was going to be a masterful symphony. Alas, he didn't finish it. I have only heard the Cooke and Wheeler completions, neither of those recently. Cooke is overwhelmiing - and has realised a great and moving symphony that I guess must bear some relationship to what GM might have finished.
glad it was a good experience.
P
Sun, Dec 4 2011, 11:19PM
#8
RE: Which Mahler 10th
Despite all the apparent good things the laborious endeavours of Cooke, Barshai and the other guys on recreating the 10th, I believe Mahler (and Bernstein) were right to stick to this one movement survived and retained. The rest looks as a quasi-Malher overstuff. Of course, for Mahler fans (I am a great admirer, but not that crazy for his exaggerating creativity, inventiveness and musicianship) it's a must to know and experience everything, even the speculative works he might have composed, as he should have composed, even if, in the end, he didn't.
For me, the 4th remains his greatest musical masterpiece, despite is the more "modest" in orchestration (for some peculiar reason, he omitted the trombones and he had a limited use of the percussions and brass). The slow movement, in musical terms, is his utmost masterpiece, a truly divine, full of magnificent musical ideas and glorious development piece.
Parla
Sun, Dec 4 2011, 11:33PM
#9
RE: Which Mahler 10th
Bernstein and many others refused to conduct anything beyond the first movement. .
Yes you have to admire Bernsteins stand on this sort of thing. He of course never conducted Mozart's Requiem for the same reason....
......NOT
Mon, Dec 5 2011, 1:08AM
#10
RE: Which Mahler 10th
it's a must to know and experience everything, even the speculative works he might have composed, as he should have composed, even if, in the end, he didn't.
Of course Mahler "composed" the 10th. He worked out the whole thing from end to end. This is quite a different case from Elgar 3 or the Scriabin Preface to the Mysterium.
Tue, Dec 6 2011, 3:54AM
#11
RE: Which Mahler 10th
Wow, it looks like I have killed another thread. Anyway....
I certainly don't want to be mistaken as saying the Cooke completion or realisation of the 10th is perfect. Listening again last night, I noticed in the uncompleted movements a lack of filigree in the string and brass lines, and, perhaps more problematically, a dirth of characteristic winds. Just listen to them swoop and chirrup away in the more sprightly parts of the opening adagio - then spend the rest of the work basically doubling the strings. This gives an interesting insight into Mahler's composing methods: for me his woodwinds are an integral piquant part of his music, but it seems he didn't literalise the parts until relatively late in the process. Perhaps later in the orchestration process he would thread them through the music in an almost improvisatory way.
I read through the notes for the Naxos CD of the Wheeler version last night. One of the most interesting points is that the American Jack Deither approached Shostakovich and then Schoenberg regarding the completion of the score. Of course, they refused to devote years of their lives to completing someone else's music, but I imagine that if one or both had submitted, there would have been no need for Cooke III or anyone else for that matter.
Lastly, here are some notes on what the original score consists of:
I. Adagio: 58 pages, 31 in full score, 27 in short score
II. Scherzo: 62 pages, 39 in full score, 23 in short score
III. Purgatorio oder Inferno: ("Inferno" is crossed out.) 6 pages, 2 in full score, 4 in short score. The music includes a figure from Mahler Wunderhorn song Das Irdische Leben (Earthly life), which is about a child dying of hunger. Written in the margins is: "Tod! (Death) Verk! (?short for verkommen, to perish?) Erbarmen! (Mercy) O Gott! warum hast du mich verlassen? (Oh God! Why have you forsaken me?) Dein Wille Geschehe! (Thy will be done)."
IV. Scherzo: 25 pages, short score only. Mahler's prolog is:
Der Teufel tanzt es mit mir (The Devil dances it with me)
Wahnsin, fass mich an, Verfluchten! (Madness, seize me, the accursed!)
vernichte mich dass ich vergesse, dass ich bin! (Destroy me so that I may forget I exist!)
dass ich aufhoere, zu sein (that I may cease to be)
dass ich ver- (that I for... [here it breaks off])
Beneath the mark for the muffled drum (the exact intended sound here is unknown), Mahler writes: Du allein weisst was es bedeutet. Ach! Ach! Ach! Leb wohl mein Saitenspiel! Leb wohl, leb wohl, leb wohl (You alone know what it means. Oh! Oh! Oh! Farewell, my lyre! Farewell, farewell, farewell)
V. Finale: 15 pages, short score only. Beneath the last bars, Mahler wrote: Für dich leben! für dich sterben! Almschi! (Live for you! Die for you! Alma!)
NOTE that on the face of it the Adagio was less complete than the first scherzo when Mahler died, and yet the Adagio is today regarded as essentially fully composed. Does anyone know the history of the completed Adagio?
Thu, Dec 8 2011, 10:19PM
#12
RE: Which Mahler 10th
I have looked in Deryck Cooke's Gustav Mahler - an Introduction to his Music (posthumously published in 1980), which says that the first and third movements were "edited by Krenek, with additions by Franz Schalk and/or Alexander von Zemlinsky, first performed in Vienna, 1924, under Schalk". Those conductors who perform only the first movement generally use this edition. Schalk, of course, was one of those responsible for the mutilation of Bruckner's symphonies between the composer's death and the publication of the Haas, Oeser and later the Nowak editions.
Cooke states that both the first and second movements were left in "full-score draft". In the case of the first movement "This had advanced so far towards its final state that it can be played practically as it stands." Cooke's edition of the first movement differs from Krenek/ Schalk in a number of details. Cooke goes on to explain the state of the other movemnts and to defend his performing version of the score, but does not discuss his involvement with Alma and Anna Mahler after the first version of his edition was performed.
The first movemnt of the tenth was once considered a rarity; I remember an LP recording by the Cleveland Orchestra and George Szell, together with the third movemnt. Unfortunately I no longer have these LPs and whilst the sixth symphony with which they were coupled did briefly appear (edited) on CD some years back, the movements of the tenth were not reissued, presumably to fit the sixth on a single CD. I think this was the first recording, slightly earlier than Rafael Kubelik's of the first movement, coincidentally also coupled with the sixth.
Rudolph Barshai also made a credible arrangement of the 10th which is worth experiencing.