Gustav MAHLER
Symphony No.10 in F sharp minor
Revised performing version (1997) by Remo Mazzetti,
Jr.
Cincinnati Symphony
Orchestra
Conducted by Jesus
Lopez-Cobos
Telarc 80565
[72.54]
Crotchet
AmazonUS
Mahler left the Tenth Symphony complete on four staves. The first and third
movements were also orchestrated to almost final stage and in the rest are
indications in varying density as to what the rest of the orchestration might
be. We now have available on record and in the concert hall performing editions
of this material prepared by four men. So long as we keep in mind that what
they have come up with represents "work in progress" we should be able to
keep a sense of perspective and gain insights into Mahler's music at this
point in his life. No version can be called a "completion", though. Only
Mahler would have been able to complete the work and we know from his working
practice that it would have sounded different from the various performing
versions in a thousand ways. The best known is by Deryck Cooke whose final
version is the most recorded and performed of all. But there are also versions
by Clinton Carpenter, Joe Wheeler and Remo Mazzetti for the conductor to
champion. Carpenter goes a lot further than anyone does in trying to fill
out what Mahler might have done had he lived. Wheeler is like Cooke in being
more conservative, more concerned with bringing to life the work as it stood
at the time of Mahler's death. Though there are recordings available of
Carpenter's and
Wheeler's
final versions you should wait for more easily available and better-performed
versions due out soon before adding those to your collections. (Andrew Litton
will conduct the Carpenter version on Delos and Robert Olson the Wheeler
version on Naxos.) What Cooke, Carpenter and Wheeler had in common was that
they arrived at their versions independently. Remo Mazzetti, on the other
hand, whose second version of the work is recorded here, is different
from the others in that he began work after they had finished and, in the
case of Wheeler and Cooke, after both men had died.
Mazzetti has always been straightforward about his relationship to the three
men's work. He assisted Carpenter in preparing the first performance of his
final edition after which he produced his own first version subsequently
recorded by Leonard Slatkin on RCA in 1994. Not surprisingly this shares
a lot of the characteristics of Carpenter's in being much more elaborately
scored and richer in contrapuntal detail than Cooke's or Wheeler's. But Mazzetti
then underwent a profound change of view that led him to produce this second
version which has now been recorded by Jesus Lopez-Cobos on Telarc. After
assisting in a Colorado presentation of the final Wheeler version he wrote
in notes to the subsequent recording of it: "the final version by Joe Wheeler
embodies the most authentic-sounding and unique realisation of Mahler's last
will and testament." All of which raises questions. Are we now to assume
Mazzetti's first version is withdrawn? If not its continuing existence and
circulation in Slatkin's recording must cast doubts as to Mazzetti's intentions
as it is very different from his second version recorded here. Secondly,
if Mazzetti is sincere in believing Wheeler's final version "embodies the
most authentic-sounding and unique realisation of Mahler's last will and
testament" how are we to view this second version? Why does he feel the need
to produce one at all if there is another that is "the most authentic-sounding
and unique"? Why not do as another tiller in the field of Tenth scholarship,
Hans Wollschlager, did when he heard Cooke's final version and regarded that
as definitive, i.e. throw in the towel and recommend people to hear that?
Are we to assume Mazzetti has changed his mind and doesn't regard
Wheeler's version as "the most authentic-sounding and unique" or are we to
take it he regards his own new version as inferior? Or if not inferior,
supplementary? It certainly sounds profoundly different from Wheeler's. Jerry
Bruck's, otherwise excellent, liner notes for this new recording give no
real answers.
Though his experience of working with the more austere Wheeler version has
now caused him to reduce the kaleidoscopic counterpoint of his first version
(more Berio than Mahler, as one critic observed), and bring himself closer
to Mahler's later style, Mazzetti is still more inventive bar to bar than
Cooke and Wheeler. And even though there is now greater discipline
in what he does, and a greater sense of purpose and focus along with the
clearer lines, I do still feel that he fills in a little too much, especially
in the final two movements and when compared with Cooke. But I'm equally
convinced this new version does earn its place as it offers a more convincing,
less gauche, set of guesses as to what Mahler's material represents
without going too far down the road of second guesses which I think he did
first time round.
Jesus Lopez-Cobos is nowhere near as emotionally searching as Simon Rattle
is in his EMI recording of the final Cooke version
(5
56972 2) which I review elsewhere. Rattle has performed this symphony
more than any other conductor has and it shows in his greater awareness of
dynamic contrasts and his confidence in projecting the work's emotional moods
to a greater extreme. There is more reach to Rattle's conception where
Lopez-Cobos is more focussed. Lopez-Cobos also emerges more stoic as he maps
Mahler's final landscape but this more detached, classical approach does
have advantages especially if you are coming to the Tenth fresh. There is
plenty of inner detail to be heard in this recording too. Notice the lower
string counterpoint in the first movement development and the lively projection
of the woodwinds. This is a well-balanced, sharply defined sound that I like
whereas Rattle's recording is set further back and is not without problems
associated with recording in Berlin's Philharmonie. The central crisis of
the first movement, where the trumpet screeches out from the texture, is
a fine portrayal of the forward-looking nature of Mahler's inspiration in
this work from both Mazzetti and Lopez-Cobos. But it's in the second movement
where the differences between this Mazzetti version, its predecessor and
the versions by other editors become clearer. The greater clarity of the
orchestral writing from time to time reminded me of the Fourth Symphony and
Lopez-Cobos is certainly on top of the music paying especially close attention
to the difficult metrical changes Mahler constantly asks for. However, I
feel the strings sound smaller-scale than I would like and they are no match
for the Berliners under Rattle, both here and throughout, who have more facility
especially with Mahler's high writing. Indeed they are no match for the
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra on Rattle's first EMI recording who can even
show the Berliners a thing or two in this and other departments. I admire
the way Lopez-Cobos seems to bring a shadow to the later part of the second
movement, though, slowing for the second trio material markedly.
After an admirably urgent reading of the short Purgatorio third movement
Lopez-Cobos launches the fourth with bounce and lift as Mazzetti's scoring
gives a welcome new perspective to this difficult movement to call for the
editor. Famously Mahler ends the movement with the drum stroke inspired by
the funeral of a fireman he witnessed in New York: a "percussion event" carried
into the last movement. In this recording the drum stroke that opens the
last movement is omitted making the fourth run into it seamlessly. This is
something Rattle always does but in his first version Mazzetti kept the extra
drum stroke and Slatkin followed. I have no idea whether the fact of the
missing drum stroke in this recording is the work of Mazzetti or Lopez-Cobos
as Jerry Bruck's liner notes actually tell us that it's still there! Whatever,
the drum strokes themselves are, as so often, far too loud for what Mahler
intended. I'm intrigued again by Mazzetti's solution to the rising figure
that accompanies the opening drum strokes in the last movement that Cooke
always gave to the tuba. As in his first version Mazzetti sticks with string
bass and harp with bassoon crescendi and that certainly provides food for
thought. With Cooke the lyrical theme that follows and will prove to be the
music's final consolation emerges on solo flute and stays with it. As with
his first version Mazzetti differs in handing the theme around the woodwinds
and I'm still unhappy with this. Also be aware that at one point in this
crucial and moving passage the oboe plays a wrong note. One wrong note might
not seem very much, but at this point in the score it is important so I'm
surprised this was not noticed and retaken. Overall I do feel that in this
movement Mazzetti is more interventionist than he was earlier, though not
as much as he was in his first version, of course. Certainly in this last
movement's animated central section there is more detail than with Cooke
but in the moving closing passage Lopez-Cobos's creative restraint then brings
its own rewards. Ultimately, though, Simon Rattle is again more profound,
darker and involved as he is right through the symphony. Missing here from
Mazzetti's new version is the coarseness from percussion especially I felt
his first version fell into and that is welcome.
It's still good to have a number of editors' views on the Tenth to listen
to and compare and I would certainly rather have them than not. However,
one final thought to leave you with. If any more versions of the material
arrive I do worry we may become subject to the law of diminishing returns.
When it might be the case that all relevant permutations on the material
left by Mahler will have been exhausted and any more will get in the way
of our considering Mahler's final work as it stood and thereby devalue the
coinage of the others. At that point we may have to call a halt and, though
just as short of Mahler's subsequent intentions as ever, struggle to get
back to considering what Mahler left rather than any differences between
what musicologists fifty years after his death have made of it. Interesting
and illuminating though that discussion is I believe the former is more important
than the latter. The point at which the editor's own personality starts to
intrude or the point at which the his own thoughts and decisions about the
material start to seem more important in consideration of the work than Mahler's
would be the time to start hearing alarm bells. Never lose sight of what
is the basis of each editor's versions: Mahler's own music at the point
he left it. Never lose sight either of the fact that if Mahler had lived
to finish the Tenth there would only be one version for us to hear now rather
than four or five. There is another version in circulation prepared by Rudolf
Barshai so this question will not go away.
It's a good illustration of how advanced Mahler's work on the Tenth was,
as well as the integrity of the four men who have brought the torso to life,
that each version has more to unite than divide and we must remember these
men are "facilitators" for Mahler's thoughts not their own. As I have
said, Carpenter allows himself more licence in interpreting Mahler's intentions
than Cooke or Wheeler. Some passages in his edition are fascinating but many
others are much more questionable which ultimately leads me to discourage
the promotion of that version, certainly over Cooke's, as anything other
than a comparison. In his first version Mazzetti also sounded like "a kid
in a candy shop" in the complexity and fussiness of his scoring so is, in
the end, also unconvincing as representative of Mahler's late style there
and so that version too must go. There are a few passages in Cooke's final
edition that concern me and a few in Wheeler's I think work better than Cooke's,
but I wouldn't expect anything else in such a project as this. In spite of
preferring Mazzetti's latest version to his earlier, it is still Deryck Cooke's
final version that I believe is the version of choice. It is the one that
neither takes too many liberties with the material nor leaves you short-changed
which, on occasions, Wheeler's version can - even though I'm glad that version
is now more current. Though my personal allegiance remains with Cooke's final
version I will take down this recording of the new Mazzetti from time to
time. Compared with Cooke's it's like seeing a familiar landscape from a
new angle under different lighting conditions and adds to the debate.
Lopez-Cobos gives a fine and detailed, if slightly unyielding, performance
of Mazzetti's fascinating revised thoughts on Mahler's Tenth that is well
recorded. However Rattle's EMI Berlin recording of Cooke's final version
remains the first choice all round.
Tony Duggan
Performance:
Recording:
See further discussion
of the 10th symphony by Tony Duggan
