Where would Mahler's music have gone had he lived longer than fifty years?
A body of opinion has maintained he would have explored the same general
routes as his younger contemporaries Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. But Mahler
was such an important figure to these men one wonders if their paths
would have been quite the same if had Mahler lived. That he would have remained
a Mahler that we would all have recognised from previous work there is I
believe no doubt. Creative artists are always themselves in the end, they
can't change. But that Mahler would have changed with each subsequent work
he produced to the same degree he did in previous works is also surely not
in doubt either. There are passages in what he left us of the Tenth Symphony
that he was working on when he died in 1911 that indicate "new-out-of-old"
paths which also fascinatingly seem to become born out in composers he did
subsequently exert an influence over. Berg, Hindemith, Shostakovich and Britten
spring to mind. Even though these composers would not have been aware of
what the Tenth Symphony contained for much of their working lives. So the
Tenth Symphony material left by Mahler is of crucial importance at the very
least to our perception of where he was going after the Ninth Symphony and
perhaps a little after that. Had Mahler lived longer it would also have been
into a world that would have seen him witness immense social change. Had
he survived into the late 1920s or early 1930s he would have come face to
face with Nazism and who knows what effect that would have had on his music,
let alone on his personal life. In the end, all speculation is futile and
we must concentrate on what we have and know of his life and work as it exists.
In the years when most of the Tenth Symphony material lay unheard any perception
of it was incomplete. Nowadays with the material is before us in a number
of forms we can reach our own impressions of this unfinished life's work.
Of course, there was a time when opinions like the following were heard more
often: "The author inclines to the view that precisely someone who senses
the extraordinary scope of the conception of the Tenth ought to do without
adaptations and performances. The case is similar with sketches of unfinished
pictures by masters: anyone who understands them and can visualise how they
might have been completed would prefer to file them away and contemplate
them privately, rather than hang them all on the wall." Thus spake Theodor
W. Adorno on Mahler's Tenth. I beg to differ. But those who are, like Adorno,
against any attempts at producing "adaptations and performances" out of the
material left by Mahler will not be interested in the recordings I am going
to deal with here and need read no further. Those who believe the material
should have been left alone, accessible only to a small coterie of scholars,
would long ago have had the chance to make up their minds about this matter
at the time of the first appearance of Deryck Cooke's first performing edition
in 1964 after Mahler's widow had lifted her ban on performances.
For years the posthumous torso of the Tenth Symphony had been in Alma Mahler's
hands. Many had come to believe it was in too fragmentary a state to make
anything presentable to the public, let alone whether such a project was
the right thing to do at all. In the 1920s the already fully scored first
movement, along with the likewise-scored Purgatorio third movement, were
published and performed. But hearing these two movements out of context,
as you still do sometimes today, is a mistake since little sense can be made
of where they fit. As Deryck Cooke said, imagine hearing only the first and
Adagietto movements of the Fifth and realise how little you know of what
else is contained in that work. Schoenberg was given a look and even Shostakovich
was approached but nothing came of this. Much later Alma Mahler would allow
publication of a facsimile of the whole material and then the cat was really
out of the bag. It became possible, if not inevitable, for a number of people
to try their hands at creating a score that could be performed in concert
alongside all the other works in the Mahler canon. The late musicologist
Deryck Cooke was the best known to produce a performing edition of these
sketches, but there have been others. Joe Wheeler in England, Clinton Carpenter
and Remo Mazzetti in the USA are also represented in the discography by
recordings of versions of the Tenth they have produced and I will come to
their versions later. But it's a version by Cooke you will hear most in the
concert hall and see in the CD catalogues. Cooke's that has become and will,
I believe, remain the "benchmark" edition.
In 1960 Deryck Cooke was on the staff at the BBC and preparing a booklet
to accompany Mahler Centenary concerts in 1960. Believing that not dealing
in detail with the whole of what was left of the Tenth would be to sell Mahler
short, Cooke immersed himself in the facsimile. After a long process of work
he produced first a radio feature containing a partial version of the work
and then a complete performing edition that was premiered at the Royal Albert
Hall in 1964.
Mahler composed the work itself in four staves from start to finish with
no gaps at all. We know enough of his working techniques at that point in
his life to know that, once he had set down that stage of a work, he never
altered the basic structure. He then orchestrated the first movement and,
to most intents and purposes, the tiny third movement. Only the beginning
of the second movement was orchestrated and then the orchestration runs out.
However, through the rest of the four staves there are indications, some
more detailed than others, of his thoughts regarding possible orchestration,
dynamics and tempi. It's these that have been worked on to arrive at what
could be reckoned eighty-or-so percent of Mahler's wishes at that time. Deryck
Cooke always pointed out that after arriving at the stage this "performing
edition" partially represents Mahler would inevitably have further revised
the work again and again - the form especially rather than the substance
- and it is in those revisions that Mahler's own refinements would have come
in and his unique sound emerged, a unique sound no one else would have got
to. So Cooke never offered his work as a "completion" of the Tenth rather
a performing version of the score as it stood at the point Mahler had reached.
So no version can be called a "completion" and it is very important to bear
this in mind. Only Mahler would have been able to complete the work
and we know from Mahler's lifelong working practice that it would have sounded
different from all the various versions we have before us in a thousand ways.
However, so long as we keep in our minds that what we have is a presentation
of "work in progress" we ought to be able to keep a sense of perspective
and gain a greater insight into Mahler's life and music than we would if
we had rejected any realisation out of hand. As the American Mahler scholar
Jack Diether put it: "It is much more important that what Mahler wrote should
be heard than that which he did not write should not be heard." In this case,
I prefer Diether's view to Adorno's.
Cast in five movements the Tenth Symphony, even in the state it was left
by Mahler, emerges with an extraordinary sense of structural balance. More
so than that of the Ninth. Two Adagios frame two Scherzos, which themselves
frame a strange, tiny, achingly descriptive intermezzo marked "Purgatorio"
at the very centre. We walk with death-haunted nostalgia in the first movement.
Then through rather forced happiness in the second movement. On to Purgatorial
unease in the third and tragic bitterness in the Fourth movement. At last
we arrive at a series of "death knell" drum strokes ushering in the remarkable
last movement. Here the work's darker elements are reviewed and explored
until terror from the first movement is recalled before serenity and heart's
ease is won at last. Deryck Cooke had this to say about the work in general
and why it is vitally important we consider it in the form it was left: "It
shows clearly that Mahler, far from plunging further into preoccupation with
death, was moving towards a more vitally creative attitude... there was still
plenty of life in him when death claimed him... the Ninth Symphony had been
a phase, like the Sixth, which he had faced and overcome." So the Tenth Symphony
gives us a further chapter in the autobiographical "novel" in music that
was Mahler' life's work. What is being mapped in this work is Mahler's own
state of mind. Especially under the pressure in 1910 from his tempestuous
marriage which, at that particular time, was under the greatest strain of
its short life. Exclamations of his torments litter the score's pages.
Most conductors of Mahler's music at the time of the first publication and
performances of Cooke's version and subsequently, have disapproved of the
score and any others like it. Walter, Kubelik, Horenstein, Barbirolli, Solti,
Haitink, Abbado - the list of those who have had nothing to do with a Tenth
performing edition is large. Leonard Bernstein even ventured some cock-eyed
rubbish about Mahler never being able to complete the Tenth even if he
had lived! According to him he "had said it all in the Ninth".
Yet some of the above conductors have been perfectly happy to perform the
Adagio first movement on its own, which is surely giving Mahler's intentions
even less consideration. The eventual conductor of the first performance
of Cooke's score in London in 1964 was the composer Berthold Goldschmidt
who was also a collaborator in the project and would have a part to play
in the
years that followed. Eugene Ormandy then conducted the
first performance in the USA with the Philadelphia Orchestra, at Alma Mahler's
insistence, and their subsequent 1964 studio recording can still be heard
on Sony. Ormandy's recording uses the score Deryck Cooke first published
in 1964. In the years that followed, Cooke would submit his score to an important
revision. Indeed, even his own revision would itself have one more slight
re-working following his death by his later assistants Colin and David Matthews,
and also Berthold Goldschmidt bringing some final thoughts. But more of that
later. For now, the fact that Ormandy's 1964 recording on Sony (which may
currently be out of the catalogue) represents the first complete Cooke edition
rather than the second for me largely rules it out of consideration. But
let us deal with it as it does have many virtues as it stands. The point
is that it both suffers and benefits from the fact that it is very nearly
a first performance. It suffers because there is no performing tradition
to call on and the conductor and orchestra must feel their way. It benefits
from the fact that feeling their way they does bring a sense of wonder and
discovery and I think you really can sense their missionary zeal in this
recording. It must also be said that the playing of the Philadelphia orchestra
is superb in every department. Ormandy adopts a very challenging tempo for
Adagio material and I think, in the last analysis, he therefore misses a
lot of the "searching" quality other conductors really plug into. There is
no denying the superlative string playing which sears into the mind, though.
Notice how the cellos really dig into the strings in the way no other version
does and the wonderful woodwind choir in the Development too. Then in the
subsequent Recapitulation Ormandy's determined line brings an astringency
to the music I am not sure is entirely appropriate. The movement's central
crisis is where a searing brass chorale is followed by a shattering dissonance
crowned by the long note on the solo trumpet that pierces the symphony like
a hypodermic full of poison. From then on the symphony's world-view is never
the same again. Here Mahler is almost mapping his own and Europe's psychic
landscape at one and the same time. Under Ormandy this doesn't have the really
hysterical power it can have, but the clean and cultured brass outburst that
initiates it is impressively delivered. Even though I do find Ormandy's overall
tempo in this movement too quick, it must be added that the relationships
between the different tempi work well.
The orchestra negotiates the metrical changes in the difficult second movement
Scherzo with supreme ease. Again this is one of the best-played recordings
before us. I also think that, whether by design or accident, Ormandy does
bring out the lighter, happier quality in this movement that Mahler once
referred to. However, when you subsequently here the revision Deryck Cooke
brought to this movement in his second edition you realise Ormandy's version
sounds rather "thin" at times. The same applies to an even greater extent
in the third movement's second Scherzo. The sense of particular Mahlerian
colouring that is more apparent in other versions is rather lacking. However,
Ormandy and the orchestra do give their best in the "new" music but cannot
get anywhere near the "earthiness" that infests this music as it winds down
to the extraordinary close because here we reach perhaps the most famous
passage in any realised Mahler Tenth. It is when the composer recalls for
us the moment that the funeral of a serving fireman paused beneath his hotel
window in New York in 1910 and a drum was struck in commemoration. It's the
moment in this work when you know that the horrors have at last taken over
the house. There is some dispute as to what exactly Mahler heard that day
in 1910 and therefore what he would have intended us to here in the symphony.
Was it a single stroke on a drum, or was it, as has recently been researched
by Jerry Bruck, a short tattoo? Should it be a bass drum as in Joe Wheeler's
edition, or a muffled military drum as in Cooke's? There is further dispute
as to how hard it should be struck. For myself I believe the more recent
trend of getting the percussionist to hit his drum as hard as possible is
quite mistaken. These drum strokes sound well in Ormandy's recording, however.
Again in this movement, Cooke's first version is itself an example of "work
in progress" so once you get the chance to compare this version of Cooke's
score with his own revision you see the subtle qualities Cooke was later
to bring out. The wonderful passage between bars 30-71, with the famous flute
solo climbing out the depth of despair, emerges cool and chaste but a steadier
tempo on Ormandy's part would have been more moving. There is no questioning
the stunning power of the Philadelphia strings in the closing pages of the
work but there is something missing, something that has to do with personal
involvement by the conductor. Ormandy was never a great Mahlerian but he
was a great conductor and this version of the Tenth is a fine example of
his art.
The differences between Cooke's original version of 1964 and then his revision
of 1972 affect the second, fourth and fifth movements and a desire for greater
clarity and a more Mahlerian sound palette. Triple woodwinds become quadruple
and so remove the need for un-Mahlerian doubling of woodwind and strings
by dividing off the "harder-sounding" woodwind instruments. In the second
movement "filling out" elements that Cooke had thought were needed to make
a proper texture went also. In came some retouching to get rid of what Cooke
called "the effect of a rehearsal for violins and brass alone". In the fourth
movement Cooke also reduced the dynamic levels in places to allow climaxes
to stand out better and the same applies in the last movement. There are
other changes that add to the greater vividness and greater Mahlerness
of the score.
The first performance of this
second version by Cooke was given
in London by the New Philharmonia
Orchestra under Wyn Morris in 1972
and recorded by them for Philips the
same year. Apart from the fact that
this is an important document in the
history of this work it is also, in
my opinion, a superbly played and
recorded interpretation and it is
good to see that it has been
reissued on CD in a coupling with
the classic Eduard Flipse "live"
recording of the Eighth Symphony.
Scribendum (SC010)
One of the first conductors to take up the second Cooke version after Wyn
Morris, perhaps the most distinguished conductor to adopt a "performing edition"
of the Tenth at all, was Kurt Sanderling. He made a recording of the work
in the old East Berlin in 1979 with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra that is
hard to find but well worth the effort if you can. It appeared on the Ars
Vivendi label and also in Japan on Deutsche Schallplatten but what we really
need is an easily available re-issue and I have hopes Berlin Classics will
come up with one to go with his excellent Das Lied Von Der Erde. Interestingly,
Sanderling makes changes of his own to Cooke's revised score and it could
be argued that, with the original material itself in such an "unfinished"
state, conductors can be allowed some freedom. Whether one agrees with some
of those changes Sanderling makes is another matter. His changes did have
consequences I will come to below, but let me deal with this recording since
I do admire it and you may be able to obtain it if you look hard enough.
[I believe this to be the disc on the
HMV Japan
website - LM]
In the first movement note the expressive quality of the string playing and
what appears a well nigh perfect judgement of tempi. The main Adagio contrasts
beautifully with that of the opening Andante, for example. I also admire
the way Sanderling brings a real emotional peak into what is very nearly
a repeat of the Exposition material. In the Development he is acutely aware
of Mahler's late style with its chamber-like textures and brings with it
an undeniable "grieving" quality that is most affecting. The movement's central
climax seems embedded into the structure with every fragment carefully attended
to by Sanderling as crucially part of what is around us. Then in the coda
he maintains a sharpness of vision that too slow and languid a performance
can take us back to the days when this movement was performed alone. In the
second movement Mahler takes the ideas of the shifting, changing metres
encountered in the Sixth Symphony's scherzo to an extreme and I think Sanderling
sets an admirable "framework" to cope with this. His approach also brings
reminders of the Ninth's Scherzo and he shows himself the master of all its
demands and encourages his orchestra to playing of great character. The change
of mood that comes in the "Trio" sections see some of the slight re-touchings
made to the orchestration by Sanderling himself and, to me, they sound discreet
and natural. More importantly here, Sanderling conveys genuine world-weariness.
This might not have been what Mahler had in mind but it's impressive for
all that. This is also a good movement in which to admire the natural analogue
recording that presents few problems whilst not being the equal of Rattle's,
for example.
Sanderling's account of the short Purgatorio fourth movement shows that he
fully realises the importance of this in the scheme. Then in the fourth
movement's Scherzo II the key to what Sanderling seems to be doing is to
home in on the juxtaposition of "Danse Macabre" with merry waltz. Here as
ever Mahler treats his material like shuffling a pack of cards and Sanderling
is clearly aware of that in the way the kaleidoscope this movement is seems
to go past us. As in the second movement, Sanderling's own adjustments sound
right again and in the winding down towards the drum strokes he is good at
the creepy end of the music, the muted brass especially memorable. As with
other recordings, I found Sanderling's drum strokes at the start of the last
movement too loud for what they are meant to depict. But he is unquestioningly
trying to convey desolation and despair and does succeed. This means the
noble adagio music that climbs out from this pit of despair, led by the solo
flute, is more moving and consoling than ever. Indeed I was reminded of the
arrival of the Shepherd's Thanksgiving after the storm in Beethoven's Pastoral.
The quicker conflict material in the centre of the movement where the work
finds resolution can catch out the best orchestras but these Berlin players
have clearly been well prepared. Sanderling also adds some extra percussion
at the return of the first movement's central climax here in the last. You
can argue that the whole point of such a return of this crisis material is
that it is and should sound the same. But Mahler seldom repeated himself
and might he have added such an extra weight to the sound had he lived? There
is a lot to the Tenth that is a clutch of "might have beens" so there must
be some latitude allowed for, I suppose. On the whole, I prefer the passage
without the extra percussion, but make up your own minds. In fact, Sanderling
appears to add more percussion here than Simon Rattle (who is on the record
as taking his cue from Sanderling) subsequently did in both his recordings.
There is under Sanderling the hint of the scaffold from Berlioz's Symphonie
Fantastique. Then in the closing pages there is sweetness and serenity, but
depth of feeling too and a rare life-affirming quality: elegy turned into
deliverance. Make no mistake, Sanderling's recording is a magnificent one
and really deserves to be better available.
I have mentioned Simon Rattle in connection with Sanderling's recording.
Rattle has performed this work more times than any other conductor. In many
ways it's become his signature work. So it's appropriate it turned out to
be this he conducted with the Berlin Philharmonic in his first appearance
with them after being named Chief Conductor and also for EMI to record both
performances from last year's Berlin Festival to use for CD issue (CDC5 569
72 2). I will declare now that I believe this Berlin recording by Rattle
to be the first choice among the available recordings of the Cooke score
by quite a long way. No other conductor matches Rattle and even those that
come close are hard or impossible to buy. As I have said, Rattle was much
influenced by Sanderling. But he was also influenced by his contact with
Berthold Goldschmidt,
Cooke's first conductor and someone Cooke counted as collaborator. When Rattle
came to make his first recording of the Cooke second edition with the Bournemouth
Symphony Orchestra for EMI in 1980 (CDC 7 54406 2) he incorporated some of
the changes Sanderling made and some suggested by Goldschmidt and the Matthews
brothers. In 1989, thirteen years after the death of Deryck Cooke, Colin
and David Matthews brought out a final revision of Cooke's score which
incorporates some of those changes that are included in Rattle's Bournemouth
recording and it this third and final version of Deryck Cooke's score that
is available to conductors now and which is used by Rattle in Berlin.
Rattle sees the first movement Adagio in one breath. An arch-like structure
and evidence of his familiarity and conviction. The opening figure on violas
is very spare sounding and then the adagio proper presents us with a cultured
string tone. This is something of a disappointment, let me say. Comparison
with the earlier Bournemouth recording shows more bloom and rapture in their
strings in a recording which, in sound terms, is generally more atmospheric.
In the Development section, however, the excellence of the Berliners' playing
is clear to all. The woodwind contributions, for example, are especially
fine in music where Mahler's chamber-like textures are explored in detail
and where only the best players will do. What we hear then is an excellent
delivery of an aspect of Mahler's later style and the Berliners respond.
In the movement's central crisis notice the organ-like quality of the massed
brass and then the refining fire Rattle charges into the music with the high
violins throwing an arc over the landscape. In the aftermath Rattle then
splendidly conveys the feeling of stoically carrying on in spite of the terror
just experienced. Nowhere does Rattle really let the music rest. Always there
is the undercurrent that the holding on is fingertip thin.
One of the most striking aspects of the second movement, the first of the
work's two scherzos, is, as we have seen, the frequent metrical changes that
carry to a logical extreme similar metrical changes in the Sixth Symphony's
scherzo. In this music Mahler places himself among the new music of the century
exploding all around him but here allowing it to illustrate his troubled
state of mind. This music holds no fears for the Berliners and Rattle seems
to revel in throwing every challenge at them and hearing them respond with
sure precision. He strides forward too, pressing on in a way I don't think
he quite did in Bournemouth. The sharp, analytical recording means we hear
everything as well. The tiny Purgatorio third movement that follows is light
and exposes the lighter bass end of this sound picture. I mention this because
I notice it, but don't let it be a determining factor in whether you buy
this excellent recording or not.
In the second Scherzo Rattle understands perfectly that this is conflict
music, once again a map of Mahler's state of mind, contrasting demonic scherzo
material with a happy waltz, pulling one way, then another, setting up an
inner dynamic. Notice the volatility Rattle causes to come over the music
as the dark coda approaches and the drum strokes beckon. In Rattle's Bournemouth
recording this "percussion event" and its subsequent repetition in the last
movement was too loud: a cannonade against which the listener had to steal
himself and surely not what Mahler had in mind. Here in Berlin Rattle has
reined back the sound and what we hear is much more a part of the texture
and for that change I praise him. Another stroke on the drum should open
the last movement but Rattle always cuts this so as not to make any break
between the last two movements and I think this is correct. Indeed, some
people who have examined the manuscript believe Mahler was thinking that
way also. Rattle then climbs out from the pit of despair to a delivery of
the melody on the solo flute that moves and impresses with each subsequent
hearing. There is also some superb string playing, the Berliners delivering
rapt pianissimi. As I indicated when dealing with the Sanderling recording,
in the movement's central crisis, a reprise of the central crisis from the
first movement, Rattle reinforces with extra percussion to ram home climactic
power. A practice he inherits from Sanderling but which is not carried
in any of the Cooke editions. The sentiments I expressed about this when
dealing with Sanderling apply here.
The coda is one of the most consoling and profound passages in all Mahler.
All of the editors of the symphony rise to the occasion perhaps compelled
by the shade of Mahler himself to deliver what he surely meant us to hear.
The playing of the Berlin orchestra under Rattle is a model of poise. The
Bournemouth Orchestra played well but the Berliners have a greater, more
complete grasp on the music in the end and Rattle too has moved on. He is
here, as always, the most compelling guide to this work of any conductor
who has recorded it and the Berliners are now clearly his to command. His
total identification with this score is remarkable and this new recording
must be the first choice of the score that itself must remain first choice.
The third Cooke version is also the one used on a superb "live" recording
by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Mark Wigglesworth and
given away "free" as a cover disc on an edition of "BBC Music Magazine".
Sometimes you can pick this up on its own and I advise you to do so if you
ever see it. Better still would be a new recording of this work by Mark
Wigglesworth since he really penetrates deeply into this work as few others
do.
[ Back copies: BBC Music Magazine, PO Box 279, Sittingbourne, Kent
ME9 8DF, UK (+44) 01795 414555
bbcmusic@galleon.co.uk
£4.95- LM]
The differences between Cooke's second and third editions are quite slight,
by the way. Nowhere near as profound as between Cooke's first and second
editions, in fact. To tell the difference between Cooke II and Cooke III
use the following guide:
1) Just before the end of the 2nd movement (bar 521) there is a cymbal crash
in Cooke III whereas Cooke II does not have this. (To be strictly accurate,
Wigglesworth's "live" concert recording already referred to doesn't do so
either. Conducting Mahler's Tenth is never an exact science, I'm afraid.)
2) The snare drum and xylophone parts were deleted in Cooke III, but are
used in Cooke II. Snare drum references in the 4th movement are bars 1, 111,
170, 380 etc.
3) At bars 451-62 Cooke II has the melody given to Violas, while Cooke III
gives it to the Cor anglais.
So there is and always will be significant areas of doubt. Often these seem
to centre on too often trying to hear or present what is on all the recordings
in this survey as though it was "Mahler's Tenth Symphony". What we have,
not just from Deryck Cooke but from all the editors, is not that. To give
them their due none of the editors of the performing editions themselves
claim it to be so. Deryck Cooke puts it best in the Foreword to the published
version of his second edition: "Mahler himself, in bringing it to its final
form, would have revised the draft - elaborated, refined and perfected it
in a thousand ways; he would also, no doubt, have expanded, contracted,
redisposed, added, or cancelled a passage here and there (especially in the
second movement); and he would finally, of course, have embodied the result
in his own incomparable orchestration. Obviously, he alone could have done
all this: the idea that someone else can now reconstruct the process is pure
illusion." I'm content to listen and gain from what I hear and find. If I
keep a part of my mind on those words of Cooke's, far from having my enjoyment
spoilt it is enhanced. I sometimes try to imagine what I'm not hearing
rather than paying all attention to what I am hearing. Trying to bring
to mind the "pure illusion" Deryck Cooke speaks of. It is the case that,
when the mind becomes exercised on a specific point, it leads it deeper into
the work.
I like to think of the various editions of the Tenth that have been produced
down the years as exhibitions of "work in progress" and that caveat leads
me to welcome the fact that Remo Mazzetti entered the field in the 1980s.
This material can only be enhanced when different sensibilities, opinions,
skills and outlooks are brought to bear. But I also think it was high time
there was an edition of the material of Mahler's Tenth for performance from
the generation that has absorbed Mahler's music in the light of more recent
years. I think also that the evidence in the recording by Leonard Slatkin
and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra on BMG/RCA (09026 68190-2) of Mazzetti's
skills, allied to his obvious love of Mahler's music, convinces me we are
fortunate he has decided to do so. I hope this puts what follows into perspective
because I want Remo Mazzetti to succeed in bringing his edition of the material
to the point at which he is satisfied with it. This leads me to point
out that the Mazzetti version, as represented in the recording by Slatkin,
is Mazzetti's first and that he has since published a new version which has
been recorded and awaits release later in 2000 and which I have been unable
to deal with here. When it is published no doubt another layer of debate
will be added. Until then I can deal only with Mazzetti's first version since
it remains current and available to CD collectors.
In the first movement I like the timpani parts added by Mazzetti at key points.
These are in keeping with what I believe Mahler would have done once he got
the piece into the concert hall since they underpin moments of emotional
power. I do feel when we get to the second movement, though, that the timpani
at 163 where the music falls into the first landler is distracting and blunts
the sudden arrival of this late expression of Mahler's favourite dance. However,
I do like the cymbals between about 253-279 as they bring to mind the Scherzo
of the Ninth and that seems appropriate. I disagree in part with Remo Mazzetti's
scoring of the Purgatorio third movement. There's too much going on for what
should surely be a nagging, troubled, insidious little movement. With instruments
"handing" themes one to another and back again like this the attention gets
distracted where it should be held. This is one part of the symphony where
Mahler did leave behind more for the editor to know what he had in mind.
I think, for example, that the "whoop" at 68 and the trills and upward "scoop"
at 103-4 are too florid. In the latter case I'm reminded of the Scherzo of
the Seventh where the effect Mahler is aiming at is entirely different. There
is an aspect of Mazzetti's version of the Purgatorio I do agree with, though.
This is the variegating of the orchestration after 126. At 126 the material
left by Mahler runs out, he inserts "Da capo" and the staves go blank. Deryck
Cooke writes of this: "It is highly unlikely that Mahler intended an exact
repetition of bars 7-34 (he has already contracted and varied bars 1-6 and
bars 122-125), but in the absence of sketch material for bars 126-153 a
Performing Version can do no more than this. Different orchestration would
be presumptuous, when Mahler's own orchestration of bars 7-28 is available
for bars 126-147 and implicit in Mahler's Short Score bars 29-34 for bars
148-153." I'm sure Cooke is right to say it is "unlikely" Mahler intended
an exact repetition of orchestration. Mahler was, after all, a master of
continuous variation. So I can't see why Cooke then goes on to say it would
be "presumptuous" to make a difference in the orchestration from 126 and
proceed to adhere to his own stricture in both his versions. So I think Mazzetti
is justified in making the "presumption" and varying the orchestration even
though, as I explained, I have problems with the orchestration decisions
he reaches.
In the fourth movement I think the percussion is used too much. The first
flourish on the side drum at the start, for example, but also in other parts.
Mahler never over-scored percussion and even had to take steps with the revision
of the Fifth when he felt he did. At 73 in both Cooke versions I've always
liked the prominent oboe. The "thicker" scoring Mazzetti adopts here has
the effect of covering this and is indicative of other similar passages where
a solo effort may be blunted. However, at 100-105 there is a passage that
has always troubled me in both Cooke versions to the extent that I've often
wondered whether Mahler wouldn't have later excised it. It seems, to me,
out of place. Interestingly, the most successful rendition of this moment
is by Sanderling who adds some woodwind figuration to Cooke's solution. Here,
in Mazzetti's version, the slightly more substantial attention paid to it
also made me feel this passage is more part of the movement.
I've always been uneasy at the use by Cooke of the bass tuba at the start
of the fifth movement. It sounds too Wagnerian - as if Fafner has woken late
- so I'm glad Mazzetti scored this in the way he did with a solo double bass.
The effect of the string base seems right: a fine solution. I do think, though,
that the flute alone should emerge out of the "darkness" and at 34 carry
on unsupported. The counterpoint from Mazzetti is tasteful but I just think
the flute alone with its purity is emotionally what Mahler had in mind and
the facsimile seems to support that. When the Allegro gets underway following
the return of the bass drum thwacks (too loud in Slatkin's recording) I feel,
as in the fourth movement, Mazzetti has "over-egged the pudding" with orchestral
detail once more. The brass is given too much to do, for example. Though
the extra "da-da-dah" at 183 didn't bother me too much. I also liked the
chattering woodwinds before the onslaught of the recapitulation of the first
movement crisis putting me in mind of the interlude in the Rondo Burleske
of the Ninth. At 282 Mazzetti has decided to add the extra weight of percussion
too. As I said when dealing with the Sanderling and Rattle recordings, it
could be said the power of this passage lies in the fact that it's like the
first movement crisis and nothing should be done to alter that. Following
this final crisis there's much to admire in what Mazzetti has done, not least
the string solos at 381-394 where the effect is of an ebbing away, not unlike
the end of the Ninth Symphony. However, I really don't like the timpani at
395 after the strings rear up for the last great statement in the movement
before the long dying away. The effect is too grandiose and shifts the balance
of the work's conclusion. We have had the clinching climax in the recapitulation
of the first movement crisis at 282. To make this moment rival it not only
undermines the former passage and gives this passage too much energy. That
Mahler still retains "passion" at this point is undeniable, but all his energy
has gone and the music, already winding down, should reflect this in being
less powerful.
Since Slatkin's is the only available recording of the first Mazzetti edition
discussion of it as a performance of the symphony is less relevant. If you
want this version of the score you have no choice but to buy this recording
of it. Since it is clear I would not in the final analysis recommend this
version of the score over Cooke's second or third versions the fact that
I find Slatkin's contribution to the performance somewhat lacking in character
and depth is largely irrelevant. In fact, I would go further and say that
were it not for the fact that this recording is the only recording of the
first Mazzetti version I would not have included mention of it. Mazzetti's
latest version, on the other hand, has been recorded by the Cincinnati Symphony
Orchestra under Jesus Lopez-Cobos who has proved himself a Mahler conductor
of considerable experience, so I look forward very much to hearing both his
performance and Mazzetti's new thoughts and reserve judgement.
This is the place to deal briefly with the version of the score prepared
by the American scholar Clinton Carpenter. By beginning work on his version
as early as 1946 Carpenter was, in fact, the first person in the field. It
would be 1966 before he completed his work's first edition, 1983 before he
received a first performance by Gordon Peters and Chicago Civic Orchestra,
and 1995 before he received a recording by Harold Faberman and the Philharmonia
Hungarica on a little-known label called Golden String. This recording is
an intense disappointment and, as with the Slatkin of the first Mazzetti,
were it not for the fact that it represents the only recording ever made
of the Carpenter score I wouldn't mention it here. Conducted in a perfunctory,
cavalier fashion, the tone-starved, lacklustre ensemble seems barely interested
in the work and the recording is only adequate. Faberman's principal fault
is the fast tempi he adopts, robbing the music of most of its emotional power.
Clinton Carpenter deserves so much more than this and I do hope one day he
receives his due in the recording studio. The CD is hard to find but, if
you are curious to hear this version of this score, by all means try to look
because it is full of interesting things. It is not an edition that I could
live with since it goes a lot further than the others do in trying to "second
guess" what Mahler would have done had he lived rather than merely presenting
what we have been left with in performance form. Clinton Carpenter is a very
clever man of the highest integrity but I think he presumes a little too
much.
There is one other name to be dealt with in the story of Mahler's Tenth as
it applies to available recordings of "performing versions" and that is Joe
Wheeler. Wheeler was an Englishman born in 1927. Apart from National Service
in the Royal Air Force he was a Civil Servant for most of his life, a
Mathematician, a ballroom dancer, a brass player, a composer and a Mahler
enthusiast from a time when that was unusual. It was in 1953 that he began
work in earnest on the Tenth Symphony material, six years before
Deryck Cooke. He had done so following a meeting in London in 1945 with the
scholar Jack Diether where the two kindred souls were at an early British
performance of the Fifth Symphony. From then on they began a detailed
correspondence that would last until Wheeler's death in 1977. Diether encouraged
Wheeler to work on the Tenth and he would produce four versions in all. The
last, the one represented in a "live" recording by the Colorado Mahlerfest
Orchestra under Robert Olson in 1997, was completed in 1966 and premiered
in New York by the Orchestra of the Manhattan School of Music conducted by
Jonel Perlea.
The liner notes in the Mahlerfest recording (MF 10), available direct from
the Colorado Mahlerfest:
http://www.mahlerfest.org/CDOrderform.htm
, contain articles detailing the history of Wheeler's edition and the work
that had to be done to bring it to "race trim" for the live performance in
Boulder, Colorado. They also make mention of the other editions. In fact
Clinton Carpenter and Remo Mazzetti played no small part, along with conductor
Robert Olson, in bringing Wheeler's edition to life for this recording, proving
the sense of fellowship that exists in the Mahler community. The short article
in the notes by Mazzetti is exemplary in scholarship and also modesty regarding
his own contribution to the Tenth Symphony's performing history while Olson's
part is dealt with in the notes by the conductor himself. He is modest on
this too but one suspects it was greater than he admits. This does suggest
that what we have before us is not a pure rendition of Wheeler's final version
but, in a work that stands or falls on the acceptance of the concept of "work
in progress" in the first place, this should not concern us too much. Especially
since Olson is expected to record the work again with a fully professional
orchestra. The Colorado Mahlerfest Orchestra forms for two performances of
one Mahler symphony every year at the festival in Boulder. Many of the players
come from the Colorado Front Range and others come from elsewhere -
professionals, semi-professionals and amateurs - but this is the only time
they play together as this orchestra. The drawback is that they don't have
the kind of corporate elan found in the metropolitan bands or the whipcrack
solidity of ensemble great Mahler playing really needs. Neither can they
draw on experience of playing other composers. It's a tribute to them and
their conductor that they play as well as this with a near note-perfect
performance taped live. But there is no doubt a few allowances have to be
made if perfection in orchestral playing and tonal splendour is important.
On the other hand there's no doubting their enthusiasm and the sense that
they share their conductor's missionary zeal. Olson is a direct and punctilious
Mahlerian, a man with a mission to adhere to the score though some might
say at the expense of passion and emotion.
Under Olson the performance of the first movement is notable for its structural
integrity. There's the sense of each episode here delivering an unfolding
story as each return of the main adagio material is played with a little
more urgency each time. There is a subtle, consistent undertow drawing us
on. I also like Olson's sense of a strict dichotomy between the warm, noble
music and the spikily dissonant passages. Presented like this we are aware
the music of this symphony presents vulnerability always trying, and ultimately
failing, to keep away terrors. This prepares us for the confirmation of this
idea at the great brass chorale blaze and trumpet dissonance. It's vitally
important we never forget this moment and under Olson we don't. However,
there is a clean, almost clinical feel to this passage as played here that
puts me in mind of Ormandy in that it lacks some of the raw emotional power
others bring and the impression is of purgation rather than wounding. It's
an interesting, refreshing impression, though.
It is from the second movement on that listeners familiar with the versions
by Deryck Cooke will notice the differences between that and Wheeler's. There's
a great deal of evidence to suggest Mahler was viewing this as a bipartite
symphony with the first and second movements forming Part I and I think Olson
is aware of this because there seems a clear idea of presenting "the other
side of the coin" to the one we have heard in the first movement. The contrast
between them couldn't be greater whilst there is still the vestige of an
idea that the two are symbiotically connected. With all that in mind I enjoyed
the idiomatic treatment of the "Trios" this first scherzo almost "falls into"
in the course of this movement. Just as in the first movement there is
alternation between two specific kinds of material (the symbiotic relationship
between them surely) here in the second movement the idea is carried many
steps further with the awkward, asymmetrical main material alternating with
the nostalgically charged Trios. Under Olson these keep moving a little faster
than usual and there is opinion to suggest a greater slowing down was a
misunderstanding of the source material on Cooke's part corrected by Wheeler.
Though I'm told Olson felt the music naturally suggested a slowing down so
this is what emerged in rehearsal for the concert here recorded. Olson's
sense of proportion and the Wheeler version's much clearer wind lines help
produce what I think is a more Mahlerian sound - though with the caveats
to follow below. I also couldn't help noticing a kinship between passages
in these Trios and their counterparts in the second movement of the Fourth
Symphony. I'm unsure as to whether this is a case of the Wheeler edition
or Olson's interpretation of it, or both, but I found it illuminating. It
is certainly the case that Wheeler's score is from now on a tougher sound
than Cooke's, less cushioned, more febrile, more worrying.
In his liner notes article, Remo Mazzetti writes: "Whereas Cooke and I imitated
the textures of the middle period symphonies (5,6 & 7) and Carpenter
tried to re-create the dense polyphony of the Ninth, Wheeler alone allowed
Mahler's own leaner textures to come through clearly. In this, Wheeler's
final version is closer to Das Lied Von Der Erde than any of the other versions,
not because Wheeler thought that this should be so, but because Mahler's
own orchestration of the first half of the symphony strongly suggested this."
I'm glad Mazzetti uses the word "closer" regarding relationships between
the sound of the Wheeler version and Das Lied Von der Erde rather than "close".
There is a whole world of difference between what we hear in this Tenth version
and that other masterpiece from Mahler's final triptych, particularly the
translucency Mahler manages to obtain from his chamber-like textures in Das
Lied. But Mazzetti's point is to be born in mind. Wheeler does indeed make
the case for a new sound palette being explored within a recognisable line
of descent that claims parentage to Das Lied Von der Erde rather than any
other work in the Mahler canon. It has often been said Wheeler is the least
"interventionist" of the various editors. Compared with Clinton Carpenter
he certainly is, but it is a lot more complex than that, as Remo Mazzetti
argues. This is all born out most strongly in the fourth movement, the second
scherzo. This has always been the problem movement for me when listening
to the Cooke version. I have never been especially moved, or completely
convinced, by Cooke's versions here. Always feeling in this movement I was
the furthest away from Mahler, not really feeling that the music suits the
scribbled exclamations Mahler left in his score at this point: "Madness,
seize me, the accursed!" "Destroy me so that I may forget that I exist!"
etc. Of course, like all Mahlerites, I have been lost in admiration for Cooke's
work and gratitude for the fact that we have always had it to hear when we
might have had nothing. But there is no doubt in my mind that it's in this
movement Wheeler's version really comes into its own. The immediate aspect
one notices is that Wheeler is freer than Cooke in his use of percussion.
In fact he was even freer than is represented here since this is one area
of the orchestration Robert Olson admits to having adjusted down. Nevertheless,
the percussion, and then, as the music progresses, those starker, clearer
wind lines and the greater "openness" of the orchestration I referred to,
(with correspondingly less use of strings as cushion), make this the movement
where, as Mahler writes in his sketches "The Devil Dances it with me". It
is in this movement as rendered here that Mahler's nightmare visions, the
one's that have threatened chaos right through, actually seem to be winning.
Olson helps by not rushing the music and knowing when to slow down even more
to mark the rhythmic effects, grinding the music into our minds. With this
in mind the orchestral quotation from the first song in "Das Lied Von der
Erde" emerges with more bitterness and abandon. So too do the dance-like
elements where Olson judges the snap of the "gallumphing" gaits to perfection
and is helped considerably by Wheeler's more astringent sound. He is also
able to accentuate more dissonance to a degree I have not been aware of to
quite this extent. This is an uncomfortable ride.
Altogether in this movement Wheeler and Olson seem to take us further into
the century than Cooke and giving us a newly tantalising "might have been"
glimpse of where Mahler could have gone. Is that modern urban life I hear
as the music starts to wind down? Perspectives shifting even more profoundly
than usual, dynamic contrasts, sharp percussion more prominent? Tram cars,
trains and motors, the buzzes and clicks of the telegraph - the "Victorian
Internet"? Mahler the precursor of Varese rather than Webern? Maybe, and
maybe that's too programmatic for a composer who rejected programmes. But
I cannot stress too highly my admiration for the fourth movement as recorded
here. It is something genuinely new and very important and makes us ask questions
of the music we may not have asked before. It's worth adding that, with the
bipartite structure in mind, the opening movement of "Part II", the tiny
but profoundly important third movement Purgatorio prepares the ground perfectly
for the fourth movement with a crepuscular, wind-dominated and more sour-sounding
piece than with Cooke.
So to the drum strokes that open the last movement. As to volume, Olson is
of the more restrained persuasion, though even he might have instructed his
player not to strike with quite so much enthusiasm as this. What someone
familiar with the Cooke version will notice most about the Wheeler version's
opening of the last movement is the fact that the ascending figure that
accompanies the drum strokes is given to the double bass section rather than
the solo tuba with Cooke or a string bass solo with Mazzetti, and that it
is delivered at a quicker tempo. A pure presentation of the Wheeler material
may have had this taken even faster and I think Olson exercised some creative
interpretation here, but the difference is still telling as it has the effect
of integrating this crucial passage more into the general tableaux of the
work, knitting it back into the previous movement and forward to what is
to come. I also liked the feeling of a small military band procession in
one of the contributions from the woodwind choir. This is idiomatically
Mahlerian to an extent Cooke isn't quite as much. As the drum falls
silent the music climbs once again and we are in the presence of the solo
flute passage that so impressed those who heard Cooke's score for the first
time in 1964. Wheeler leaves the flute playing alone rather, as Mazzetti,
hands the material around the section and he is surely correct. In the subsequent
quicker passages of the movement Olson's sense of the architecture of the
work doesn't fail him. All the references back to the Purgatorio and to the
two scherzos come off, as too does the greater sense of dynamic contrasts
that were so telling in the fourth movement. The final, clinching dissonance,
the recall of the key piercing high trumpet passage from back in the first
movement, carries the same purging quality and a sense of "full circle" is
achieved. This is such a consistently "thought through" performance, symphonic.
The final section, where Mahler reaches a peace and resignation like no others
in any of his works is in keeping with Olson's treatment of the first movement:
pure, direct, without self-indulgence or excess, but built up unerringly
if a little "four-squarely". Others might prefer more passion. I wouldn't
disagree, but as a presentation of the score you could not really ask for
more. I liked the cymbal crash Wheeler puts into the score at one moment
of resolution too.
This is a release of importance to the Mahler discography and is worthy of
joining it since, unlike Slatkin's recording of the Mazzetti and especially
of Faberman's of the Carpenter, Olson's performance of the symphony deserves
its place here in spite of the fact that it is, at the moment, the only recording
we have of the Wheeler. The availability of Wheeler's edition does not, I
think, herald a replacement for Deryck Cooke's latter two but is a compliment
to it as are those by Clinton Carpenter and Remo Mazzetti also. To broadly
characterise each of the editors from the most to conservative to the most
adventurous would be in the order of Wheeler, Cooke, Mazzetti and Carpenter.
As things stand at the moment I regard the Wheeler score, as represented
in the Olson recording, the first alternative to those by Cooke. But Deryck
Cooke's final versions remain, at the moment, the paramount guide to the
Tenth Symphony as it stood at Mahler's death. I'm aware of all the scholarly
disagreements that statement entails but I think I have a duty to state my
position. Of those conductors who have taken this best-known version up it
is Simon Rattle who reigns supreme with Kurt Sanderling close behind. Rattle's
second recording in Berlin is the one against which all others should be
measured even though I have the highest regard for the hard to find Sanderling
in spite of the changes he makes. Those recordings by Wigglesworth and Morris
already mentioned run these close but they are even harder or impossible
to find. There are two other recordings of the second Cooke version of the
Tenth. One of these is by Ricardo Chailly and the Berlin Radio Symphony on
Decca. It's a fine version though not, I think, the equal of the ones already
dealt with. More importantly this was made earlier in Chailly's career before
his more recent Mahler recordings with the Royal Concertgebouw and his
performance of the Tenth has matured greatly. I very much hope he will re-record
the work soon. I do await a new recording of the Wheeler version by Robert
Olson too. Not just for the fact that it will be with a better orchestra
than the one on his present recording, but also that it might offer us a
version of Wheeler's score a touch more faithful to the original. Even though
this will not lessen my admiration for the Colorado version.
This survey is, by the nature of the work under discussion, very much an
"interim report". With Mazzetti's second version imminent for release by
a fine Mahler conductor, an entirely new version of the work rumoured to
be in the wings from another well-known conductor, and the propensity of
still other conductors to make their own adjustments to the versions that
already exist, how could it be anything else?
Rattle Berlin Philharmonic CDC5569722
Crotchet
Amazon
US
Rattle Bournemouth SO CDC7544062
Crotchet
Amazon
US
Slatkin St Louis
SO 09026 68190-2
Amazon
US
see also Gustav
MAHLER (1860-1911) Symphony No. 5 in C sharp
minor (1901-2)
Symphony No.10 in F sharp minor (1910) Reconstruction and instrumentation
after Mahler’s sketches by Rudolf Barshai 
Junge Deutsche Philharmonie/Rudolf Barshai
Tony Duggan