When this recording
of Mahler’s Fifth, reissued in this
set, first came before me for review
(Laurel Record LR-905) I ended up writing
the most positive review of any release
I have ever placed on Music Web. In
so doing I contributed to something
of a stir beyond its web pages as well.
This ‘stir’ is even referred to in the
liner notes of this release. I realised
then that I was in the presence of one
of the finest recordings of a Mahler
symphony I had heard in over thirty
years and what I considered the finest
version of the Fifth then available.
As I intend to spend this review considering
the brand new recording of the Tenth
Symphony that is coupled with this reissue
of the Fifth I think it would be best,
if you do not already own the recording
of the Fifth, for you to read my original
review of it safe in the knowledge that
I have not changed my mind.
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/May02/Mahler5_Barshai.htm
I concluded: "If
you buy only one new Mahler recording
this year make sure it’s this one. Versions
of Mahler symphonies of this calibre
arrive very seldom. It is the finest
recording of the Fifth Symphony currently
available."
The excellence of that
Fifth under Barshai naturally made me
anxious to hear more Mahler from him.
At that time I knew he had been engaged
for some years on his own score realisation
of the Tenth Symphony material left
by Mahler at his death and that this
was likely to be the next Mahler we
had from him on record. When it emerged
that the recording would be with the
same orchestra as that of the Fifth
my expectations were heightened. It
has been a long wait but now the wait
is over. I can report straightaway that
it has been worth it, both in terms
of the score but also, most importantly,
in terms of the performance and the
recording. This disc of Barshai’s version
of the Tenth is more than worthy of
being coupled with the Fifth, so much
so that if you already own the original
release of the latter I would advise
you to have no hesitation duplicating
it so you can get his Tenth. Perhaps
you can gift your old single copy of
the Fifth to a music-loving friend and
so spread the word of Rudolf Barshai
in Mahler farther and wider.
Mahler left the Tenth
complete on four staves. We know enough
of his working techniques 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 I think
could be reckoned eighty-or-so percent
of Mahler's wishes at that time
of work in progress by various hands
including Deryck Cooke, Joe Wheeler,
Clinton Carpenter, Remo Mazzetti and
now Rudolf Barshai. The best known of
these, Deryck Cooke, always pointed
out that Mahler would inevitably have
further revised the work 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 none of
these performing versions ever can be
called "completions" and it is important
to always bear this in mind.
The last time I reviewed
a recording of Mahler’s Tenth it was
Andrew Litton’s Dallas version of the
Carpenter score. In the course of what
was one of the most negative reviews
of anything I have ever written for
Music Web I had a number of things to
say about how I believe the various
and growing number of performing versions
of the score should be approached by
the listener. So let me direct you to
that review and add that I have not
had cause to change my mind about this
one either.
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/Jun03/Mahler10_Litton.htm
You will gather that
even then I was prepared to live with
Rudolf Barshai’s version of the score
principally on the evidence of his superb
conducting of it that I had heard in
two radio broadcasts. However, now that
I have had the opportunity of listening
to Barshai’s approved recording I am
in an even better position to report
what my feelings regarding the score
now are.
It is certainly the
case that there are some passages in
it where I found my eyebrows raised
a fraction or two at the conclusions
Barshai has reached. However that in
no way deters me for saying that here
is a presentation of Mahler’s material
that, whilst it seems to step somewhat
further into creative speculation about
Mahler’s ultimate intentions than that
by Deryck Cooke, is still a score Mahlerites
can accept as a most stimulating, eminently
valid and thoroughly professional
version. There is a fierce intellectual
rigour running through it which overrides
any niggling doubts one might have from
time to time about passing details.
By that I mean the fundamental argument
of Mahler’s own is never diffused by
tricks or over-scoring. Barshai seems
to know unerringly when to stop and
leave things alone. He does, however,
certainly appear to have an agenda,
of which more later, but that is quite
acceptable and it is an appropriate
agenda anyway. Most important of all
here is a score which allows Barshai’s
particular talent as a Mahler conductor,
as evinced in his recording of the Fifth,
to have full rein. That, as I stated
in my review of the Litton recording,
is what I believe has ultimately to
carry all before it, whichever version
of the score is being used apart from
Carpenter’s. Here, where the version
of the score used is uniquely
that of the conductor himself, Barshai’s
view of the music as a conductor is
so intimately welded to his view of
the music as an editor that, in the
end, I think it becomes difficult to
tell where the one starts and the other
finishes. The only solution is to put
away any thoughts about whether this
might or might not be what Mahler actually
intended had he lived. You should stand
back and take in the piece as a whole,
and allow what you hear to convince
you … or not, as the case may be.
All that being said,
Barshai’s score works and works well.
There are no great "shocks"
in store for those who, like me, have
grown up with the Cooke version. In
fact I think there are insights which
will send you away enriched rather than
enraged. I am convinced enough
by the Barshai score and by both the
intimate combination of that score with
the performance given of it to recommend
it to you warmly. Some will disagree
with me. In the context of this ever-developing
acquaintance we are having with Mahler’s
Tenth, this is a phenomenon to be welcomed.
It stimulates further our interest and
concern for Mahler’s life’s work. But
what I hope no one will disagree with
is the sheer quality of the performance:
by Barshai as conductor, and by the
players of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie.
So take this recording in its totality
- score and performance - and
I believe that you will return to it
often.
The first movement
is compelling from start to finish.
One of the benefits of a single "live"
performance, which this is, is the opportunity
for the conductor and players to think
in the longest of paragraphs. What most
impresses on first hearing is the playing
of the strings which are, by turns,
searing, searching, warm, ice-cold,
ardent, playful, in fact every shade
of meaning available to them which Barshai
loses no opportunity to apply whenever
the music demands. This is not a comfortable
view of the movement, though. Barshai’s
philosophy behind his edition of the
score, the agenda that I referred to
earlier, is, I think, very much one
of seeing Mahler in the Tenth as precursor
of the future in music and there is
a concomitant restless quality to his
conducting all the way through just
as the future in 20th century music
became more restless with the century;
as good an example of score and performance
going hand in hand as you could wish
for. From this first movement you can
also hear a prodigious care for the
inner details of the scoring, especially
the woodwinds, and the recorded sound
presents us with a rich balance where
everything can be heard clearly. This
is especially so in the Development
section where overtones of "Das
Lied Von der Erde" are apparent
in those woodwind contributions taking
on the chamber-like textures of that
earlier work, helped to be heard again
by the open quality of the recorded
sound. You are aware that Mahler’s powers
were still at their height here. The
great outburst/crisis in the centre
finds the brass section rich, firm and
absolutely solid, and the balance from
the engineers, for me, well-nigh perfect,
making the moment searing in its intensity.
The squeal of the solo trumpet is quite
the most terrifying I have ever heard
on record. By the end of the movement
you will again have heard Rudolf Barshai’s
particular credentials as a Mahler conductor
that appeared so memorably for me in
the recording of the Fifth Symphony.
An intellectual rigour balanced by an
ardency of heart with neither predominating.
In the second movement
all the textures are again very clear
and open, players assisted by engineers,
and so too is Barshai’s insistence on
that persistent rhythmic "nag"
that prevails through so much of the
movement. He really does seem to make
this rhythmic gait of the main scherzo
material a cardinal aspect of what he
does here. The trio sections are all
upper Austrian gaiety and catch, but
I think you will, like me, be surprised
at some of the instrumentation Barshai
has employed here. I won’t spoil the
surprise by telling you what he does.
Listen for yourselves and make up your
own minds as to whether you think his
solution is valid. For the rest, the
stops and starts, the jagged quality
of the movement’s progress; again that
uncomfortable tone noticed in
the first movement as an undertone now
becomes an overtone. The feeling that
there is something nasty hovering over
us which we cannot quite see is a growing
presence.
The tiny third movement
Purgatorio finds Barshai and his players
in very deliberate mood and tone. Rhythm
is again very marked and stressed. There
is acknowledgement of the Wunderhorn
song with which the movement shares
ancestry but Barshai’s main tone of
voice is, I think, one of growing bitterness.
This is, after all, music that will
be recalled in the last movement where
the bitter aspect will make its final
conflict with the need, on the other
hand, for resignation and repose. It
is as if Barshai is laying down his
marker for that and wanting us to keep
it in our minds.
The fourth movement,
the second scherzo, has Barshai maintaining
a superb grip on the disparate elements
of this most difficult of Mahler’s movements
with the ever- shifting, ever-changing
canvas superbly rendered. Listening
to this recording I became aware, to
an extent I hadn’t previously, that
Mahler was here trying to demonstrate
that one of life’s truest horrors is
the fact that nothing endures, that
everything changes, that even what appears
to be the most enduring will be undermined
by life’s machine grinding us on and
grinding us down. Barshai’s performance,
and, one must also assume, his score,
brings this aspect out in an astounding
way. In what is an outstanding interpretation
of the whole symphony I think this movement
in particular stands out as the most
remarkable of all. I have simply never
heard it played and interpreted as well
as it is here. When towards the end
the music darkens and heads towards
worlds that Mahler had only hitherto
hinted at there is confirmation, for
me, of what I have suggested is Barshai’s
overall view of the Tenth as a forward-looking
musical canvas. Schoenberg, Berg and
Webern beckon, and so too does Shostakovich
and Britten. Not just the sound of what
you hear but the meaning beneath the
notes. Stunning.
The drum strokes that
open the last movement are placed quite
distantly in the stereo picture. They
are still loud enough to chill, though
not so loud that they knock you out
of your seat. The recording also renders
the deep sounds that permeate the opening
of the movement very well. Notice especially
the softest of bass-drum rolls that
is a feature of Barshai’s scoring here.
Under him the last movement unfolds
as it should: as counterpoise to the
first movement. Here, symphonically,
all is resolved. Barshai’s grasp of
the arching structure is unerring. The
driving allegro section after the second
appearance of the drum-strokes recalls,
for me, the hedonism of parts of the
Sixth Symphony’s last movement. The
recall of the first movement climax
is just as terrifying as it was first
time around with the superb sound recording
laying bare the levels of this extraordinary
music. The close of the symphony, that
long, valedictory arrival at repose
and resignation that Mahler has been
aiming at since the start of the first
movement, is more richly scored than
we may be used to, but never obtrusively
so. Barshai’s balance of head and heart
is illustrated yet again in both score
and interpretation.
You will have gathered
that I think very highly of this new
recording of the Tenth Symphony. If,
like me, you believe it to be the performance
that matters most in choosing a recording
irrespective of which performing edition
of the material is used I have a simple
conclusion: that this may well be the
finest performance of the Tenth
on record and that you can buy it with
confidence. If you do take into account
performing editions, however, then things
are a trifle more complicated. Put it
this way: in terms of performing editions
alone, I think that anyone who is coming
entirely new to the Tenth Symphony should
still hear Deryck Cooke’s more austere
version first in a good recording and
get to know that. There are a number
of fine versions available. (Simon Rattle
on EMI Classics 5569722, for example).
But once that is done Barshai’s new
version should be your next port of
call where you will be given a subtly
different perspective on the material,
rather like the effect of a painting
you have been used to being hung on
one gallery wall now being hung on another
with different light sources, background
and frame. You will hear a rigorous,
professional and consummate score with
much to interest, provoke, move and
inspire. You will not be without questions,
though. You will not be without some
surprises. But you will, I think, be
impressed and moved. You will also hear
in this recording a performance of the
work the excellence of which is, in
my opinion, not equalled in any of the
recordings of the Cooke version and
it is this belief which will keep the
recording special to me.
This single recorded
performance took place on September
12th 2001, the day after the tragedies
in the United States, and some of the
eloquence of what we hear surely must
have been due to the players’ reactions
to that. They play even better than
they do in the Fifth with refinement
and eloquence and a corporate élan
that would be envied by great metropolitan
orchestras. They are also served superbly
by the engineers with sound of clarity
and power but with a realistic concert
perspective. All this from a bargain
label only makes it more remarkable
and Brilliant Classics should be proud
of themselves for issuing this.
The best Mahler Fifth
on record is now coupled with a Tenth
to treasure. Barshai’s Mahler is not
to be missed.
Tony Duggan
see The
Mahler symphonies on Record by Tony
Duggan
Junge Deutsche Philharmonie/Rudolf Barshai