Gustav MAHLER (1860-1911)
Symphony No. 10 in F sharp
BBC talk by Deryck Cooke. Musical illustrations by the Philharmonia Orchestra/Berthold Goldschmidt and by Deryck Cooke (piano) [102:58]
rec. BBC broadcast, 19 December 1960
Symphony No 10 in F sharp (Full-length performing version by Deryck Cooke (1919-1976)) [72:29]
London Symphony Orchestra/Berthold Goldschmidt
rec. live, 13 August 1964, Royal Albert Hall, London
TESTAMENT SBT31457 [3 CDs: 35:16 + 67:42 + 72:29]
In recent weeks I’ve had the opportunity to consider
the 1972 recording by Wyn Morris of Deryck Cooke’s performing version
of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony (review).
I've also attended a fine live performance by the City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra under the young English conductor, Nicholas Collon (review).
As part of my preparation for those assignments I had occasion to revisit
this Testament release and to listen to Deryck Cooke’s talk about the
work. This three-disc set was issued in 2011 to mark the centenary of Mahler’s
death but we do not seem to have reviewed it.
Tony Duggan has written
in detail about the Tenth and the reconstruction work that Deryck Cooke
– and several others – effected in order to make Mahler’s
sketches performable. I will summarise the background briefly. Cooke was heavily
involved in the preparation for the BBC’s celebrations of the Mahler
centenary in 1960 and this caused him to investigate the sketches of the Tenth
that Mahler left on his death. The five movements were in different states
of completion. The long first movement was left in draft full score and part
of the short third movement was in a similar state with the rest of the movement
left in short score and lots of clues as to orchestration. The other three
movements existed only in short score or sketch form though a crucial point
is that the actual music of the symphony, from beginning to end,
had been composed by Mahler prior to his death. In 1924 a facsimile of the
manuscript had been published and at the request of Alma Mahler the first
and third movements were prepared for performance by the composer, Ernst Křenek.
Some performances duly took place. There was a subsequent revision of Křenek’s
work by Otto Jokl and a live recording of what is apparently the 1953 premiere
of the Jokl edition is available on Music & Arts (review).
One important point to make – and Deryck Cooke readily acknowledged
this – was that Mahler would almost certainly have made revisions to
the Tenth had he lived to complete it. He regularly did this with his symphonies,
especially in the light of his experience of their earliest performances.
That said, neither Das Lied von der Erde nor the Ninth Symphony were
performed during Mahler’s lifetime. So, though musicians and audiences
have always readily accepted those scores we cannot be certain that the composer
would not have revised them had he lived to hear them in performance. This
issue of revisions was one reason why Cooke never claimed that his work was
a completion; rather he always scrupulously referred to it as a performing
version.
Notwithstanding all the challenges, Cooke decided to try to make Maher’s
sketches performable and the fruits of his work were first heard in a BBC
Third Programme broadcast, lasting over 100 minutes, on 19 December 1960.
That entire broadcast is preserved here on the first two CDs. On the first
disc Cooke talks for over half an hour about the score and his reconstruction
work. There are no fewer than 38 musical examples during his talk, 16 of which
are illustrated by Goldschmidt and the orchestra, the remainder by Cooke at
the piano. Helpfully, Testament track each of these examples separately. The
talk is fascinating, not just because it gives an idea of the work Cooke did
but also because it is, in effect, a detailed programme note about the symphony.
As a result, for example, we learn much about the thematic interrelationships
between the movements. On the second disc we hear the music in the hands of
Goldschmidt and the Philharmonia. They were able to perform the first, third
and fifth movements in their entirety but by that time Cooke had not been
able to link together all the material of the other two movements so we hear
four sections of II and three sections of IV. Even then the bulk of each of
these movements can be heard – some eight minutes of II and nearly 11
minutes of IV.
Cooke’s talk is full of interest. He starts off by declaring unequivocally
that what he has done is not a completion of Mahler’s score, rather
it’s a realisation of the material. That always remained his position.
He tells us that he rejected the published edition of the first movement because
it contained many unwarranted additions to the scoring – something for
which he did not blame Křenek but, rather, the subsequent editor, presumably
Jokl. A crucial point is that he feels conductors who had hitherto performed
this Adagio had misunderstood the music. They saw it as an extension
of the valedictory Ninth whereas Goldschmidt, with the advantage of knowing
what is to come later in the next four movements of the Tenth, takes that
opening movement at a less “funereal” speed. He also talks about
the third movement, ‘Purgatorio’ and points out that what Maher
had in mind here was Dante’s "Purgatorio", so the movement
isn’t “blood-curdling”. In his booklet note Colin Matthews,
of whom more later, says that initially Cooke held the view that the ‘Purgatorio’
was a slight movement which Mahler would probably have discarded later; he
came to change that view, recognising its thematic and emotional importance
to the last two movements.
At this stage, in 1960, Cooke said that he felt he was about 80% of the way
through as regards the scoring of the last two movements. When we hear Goldschmidt
and the Philharmonia play the orchestral passages the music in all the movements
is fascinating to hear. However, with the benefit of hindsight, we can hear
some rough edges which would be smoothed out by the later work that Cooke,
and his collaborators, did subsequent to December 1960.
Mind you, his work might have been stillborn for after the 1960 broadcast
- and even though she had not heard it - Alma Mahler was persuaded to prohibit
future performances of the music. We owe a huge debt to the conductor Harold
Byrns who persuaded her to listen to a recording of the BBC broadcast. Greatly
moved by what she heard, Alma changed her mind and wrote to Cooke giving “full
permission” for further performances. Just before she died in 1964 a
number of additional pages of manuscript score came to light among her papers
and Cooke, who had continued to work privately on the score even during the
time of Alma’s ban, was able to incorporate some of that material into
his full performing version. He had been aided by Goldschmidt, who had supported
his work from the outset. In addition, since 1963, he’d received assistance
from the young brothers, Colin and David Matthews.
So it came about that at the 1964 Proms Berthold Goldschmidt conducted the
premiere of the full performing version of the Tenth, which is what we can
hear on the third CD. Let it be said straightaway that although the performance
has its imperfections it’s still a fine reading. It’s interesting
that his overall view of the first movement is a bit more spacious as compared
with 1960; in the Prom performance he takes 23:05 compared with 21:20 in the
earlier account. The track timings might suggest that he also takes more time
over the finale but, in fact that’s not the case. In 1960 the movement
played for 21:20 whereas in 1964 the music plays for 20:49 and is followed,
after about three seconds, by applause.
Goldschmidt clearly understands the symphony at a very deep level. He gives
a powerful, passionate reading of the opening Adagio and in the big
climax the dissonance is strongly brought out. Though this climax is fairly
brief Goldschmidt ensures it’s a wrenching experience. The emotionally
fragile closing minutes are very moving. The LSO are agile and biting in the
scherzo material of the second movement while the trio sections are nicely
nostalgic though there are also some (deliberate) acid touches. This movement
is quite reminiscent of the Scherzo of the Fifth.
The ‘Purgatorio’ is a strange little movement and Goldschmidt
is good at bringing out both the light, almost innocent aspects as well as
the darker side. His reading has the stamp of Mahlerian authenticity but,
then, that’s true of his way with the symphony as a whole. The scherzo
elements of the fourth movement are sharply projected. This, I suspect, is
the most demanding part of the symphony to hold together, though that’s
not to suggest that Goldschmidt is unconvincing. However, the movement has
many sharp bends to negotiate and, to be honest, you can tell that at times.
There’s some shuffling by the audience in the short gap between this
movement and the finale, which is slightly damaging to the tension that Goldschmidt
has created. The dull bass-drum thuds are very loud, though I suspect that’s
done to ensure they register in the vast Albert Hall acoustic. The lovely
flute solo – recently described to me by a highly experienced musician
as “transcendental” – sounds like a ray of hope in a troubled
landscape. Then the LSO strings take up the melody most beautifully. It’s
salutary to reflect that, except for anyone who’d heard the 1960 broadcast,
all those in the audience or listening on the radio would have been hearing
this wonderful music for the very first time; that must have been a revelatory
experience. Goldschmidt builds the music with great intensity to the point
where the drum-strokes and the material from the movement’s opening
are heard again. In the faster section he and the LSO deliver the music with
thrust and urgency. The big climax (at 12:01) doesn’t really come off.
The textures aren’t quite right yet – the xylophone sounds rather
apologetic – but thereafter Goldschmidt handles the gentle last few
minutes with great sensitivity. Thus Deryck Cooke’s performing version
of Mahler’s Tenth was auspiciously launched.
That wasn’t quite the end of the story, for Cooke and his helpers continued
to make changes to the score until it was published in 1974, not least by
expanding the woodwind forces from triple to quadruple which enabled them
to eliminate quite a bit of doubling. So, effectively the score that was published
in 1974 was ‘Cooke II’ whereas the score that Goldschmidt unveiled
in 1964 was ‘Cooke I’. Even after that publication further revisions
– points of detail – were made and, for good measure, several
conductors have made their own modifications. However, what you hear in this
1964 broadcast will sound very familiar to anyone who has heard any of the
recent recordings of the symphony in Cooke’s version.
I think you will notice that both the 1960 and 1964 performances are not as
polished as we are accustomed to hearing nowadays. In saying that I’m
not just thinking of recordings, where there are opportunities to edit. The
recent CBSO performance that I attended was more assured than the performances
here preserved. I make this point not to denigrate in any way the tremendous
efforts of either the Philharmonia or the LSO but two points are germane.
One is that general standards in professional orchestras have risen significantly
in the last fifty years or so. The other is that not only were these two orchestras
playing highly demanding music for the first time but also orchestras were
infinitely less familiar with Mahler’s music, its style and idiom, as
compared with their successors today.
I find it very sad that a number of distinguished conductors who were prominent
in the Mahler "boom” of the 1960s and 1970s would have no truck
with the Cooke performing version. People of the standing of Bernstein, Haitink,
Kubelik, Maazel, Solti and Tennstedt either never performed the Tenth or else
confined themselves to the first and third movements. As these are all such
esteemed Mahlerians one must respect their feelings that Mahler’s score
should be left as he left it. That said, I would have loved to hear Bernstein
and Haitink in particular conduct Cooke’s performing version. One great
exception among this generation was the great German conductor, Kurt Sanderling,
who took up the piece in 1979 and made a notable recording of it (review).
However, for the most part it was left to conductors of the present generation
such as Riccardo Chailly, Daniel Harding, Mark Wigglesworth and, above all,
Sir Simon Rattle to advance the cause of Cooke’s performing version.
As I say, I have to respect the views of seasoned Mahler interpreters but
I think they’re wrong. The Tenth gives us a much fuller, rounder picture
of Mahler than is possible if our view of him ends with Das Lied von der
Erde and the Ninth. Deryck Cooke, through his dedication and musicianship,
enabled us to get closer to Mahler’s Tenth than we might otherwise have.
I think it’s also worth bearing in mind a point made to me recently
by a correspondent who, like me, attended the recent CBSO performance. He
commented, very fairly, that there’s a lot more of Mahler in Cooke’s
performing version of the Tenth than there is, pro rata, of Mozart
in Süßmayr’s completion of the Mozart Requiem, a score that I’m
sure all of the aforementioned senior conductors played many times during
their careers.
Cooke was not the only musician to attempt to render performable the score
that Mahler left us. Among others performing versions are those by Rudolf
Barshai (review),
Clinton Carpenter (review),
Remo Mazzetti Jr. (review)
and Joe Wheeler (review).
However, it’s the Cooke version that has secured the widest acceptance
– there are nine recordings of it listed in our Masterworks
Index, which tells its own story. It's also the version you’re
most likely to encounter in the concert hall; rightly so, I think. While Cooke
was both modest and realistic in insisting that he hadn’t “completed”
the symphony his version sounds ’right’ to me. These three CDs
bring to life for us the circumstances in which his work came to fruition.
Mahler’s Tenth Symphony is, for me, an indispensable part of his musical
legacy. Our ability to hear it in Deryck Cooke’s authoritative and idiomatic
performing edition both widens and deepens our appreciation and understanding
of the music of Gustav Mahler. Without Cooke’s dedicated work –
and that of his collaborators – lovers of the composer’s music
would be much the poorer. This set from Testament is an historical document
of great significance and I strongly commend it to all who would like to understand
the work better.
It only remains to say that the transfers have been skilfully managed by Paul
Baily and that the booklet includes a very valuable note by Colin Matthews.
John
Quinn
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