Customer Reviews

Mahler: Symphony No. 10

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am one of those old enough to have been actively tuned in to the late-'60's release of Eugene Ormandy's pioneering recording, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, of the original Deryck Cooke "performing version" of Mahler's 10th Symphony. While not the last word as a finely-wrought or subtle performance, it won me over to the concept that there was merit in hearing Mahler's thoughts as they existed before he could finish the work prior to his premature death. Recognizing his mortality, this was to have been his final "leave-taking" work, part of a trilogy in which "Das Lied von der Erde" and the 9th Symphony represented his farewells to nature and the world at large and to his friends and to music, and this 10th Symphony a special farewell to his wife, Alma. For many years, she did not release the private materials that Mahler had left behind, and resisted all efforts to permit "completion" of the work. But, by 1960, the statute of limitations on his estate expired, and, a few years later, she reconsidered her long-held action and relented, making the materials available for scholarship. It was at this point that Cooke, and then Ormandy, entered the picture.

Parts of the score were so sparse as to represent a risk of interpolative "tinkering" by those who endeavored to put flesh on the skeleton, and Alma Mahler's fears were not unfounded when "reconstructors" such as Mazzetti and Carpenter did major damage to Mahler's sparely-indicated intent by adding too much of their thoughts and not letting Mahler's notes speak for themselves. But Deryck Cooke did a masterful job of stepping aside, letting Mahler's voice come through. Over the rest of his own life, Cooke was to go back again and again with second and third thoughts and more, all in an ongoing scholarly effort to let the music speak for itself. This new Rattle/Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra performance represents Cooke's final thoughts on Mahler's final symphony, and it is revelatory.

Fast-forward to late 1999. Benjamin Zander performs the 9th Symphony, conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra, on a Telarc release that is so monumentally staggering that this reviewer has major misgivings, for about a year, regarding whether anyone, Cooke included, had been able to do justice to the 10th Symphony, so "final" is Zander's performance of the leave-taking of the Finale, heartbreaking yet full of repose and peaceful resignation. And there matters stood, for months, until my recent acquisition of this Rattle performance.

It is important for me to state that I am NOT a Sir Simon Rattle acolyte, finding him, for the most part, to be somewhere "in the middle of the pack" for his earlier Mahler work, including his previous foray of the 10th with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. But this performance is different, and special, in the same way and to the same extent, that Zander's Mahler 9th is. It has totally won me over and once again restored my faith in the scrupulous honesty and integrity of Cooke's motives and efforts. It, like Zander's 9th, is a recording of a live performance, though one would never know it to be. (It was rumored that EMI would not underwrite a studio recording of this work, so we should be thankful to Rattle for insisting on the release of this live performance.)

In "Das Lied von der Erde" and the 9th Symphony, and this 10th Symphony as well, everything leading up to the final movement is just prelude to the farewell. Each farewell is a miracle in itself, but the Finale of the 10th is special simply because it is both Mahler's farewell to Almschi and the one movement of the 10th where Cooke tread on very dangerous ground, given the paucity of materials present in the score. (While Cooke had to work around many missing details, Mahler had in fact indicated that the first solo, once past the transition from the Scherzo, be assigned to the flute, and it is gorgeous beyond description.) Rattle thoroughly vindicates Cooke's integrity and judgement with a performance that will stand the test of time. The concluding Coda, just as heart-breaking (if not more so, given its circumstances) as the closing measures of the Adagio of the 9th, is equally full of repose, but, more importantly, full of a sweetness that lingers long after the final pianississimo dies out.

At long last, a Mahler 10th that can take its place beside Walter's "Das Lied von der Erde" and Zander's Mahler 9th. And my undying gratitude to Deryck Cooke and Sir Simon Rattle.

Bob Zeidler

Like other reviewers, I was familiar with Rattle's earlier recording (with the Bournemouth SO, not the CBSO as someone else mentioned) and was eager to hear this - and on the whole was not disappointed. Of course you'd expect the Berlin violas to be a bit better in the long opening solo - but actually that's all they are: a bit better. Of course the recording is finer - for instance, one drawback of the earlier one was that you could hear the faders going up and down for the big drum strokes that open the finale. And on the same point, this recording makes the final drumstroke of the fourth movement double as the opening of the fifth - much better than on the earlier recording where you heard it twice. Musically is it any better? Well all the slow music has become broader and sometimes reduced in intensity - the long slow passage which ends the symphony doesn't quite hang together for me, and the great violin outburst right at the end doesn't to grow out of what's gone before. Faster passages - particularly in the third and fourth movements - have more urgency and drive and benefit from the better recording. The greatest surprise for me came at the climax of the last movement where Rattle has changed the bass note of the great chord which begins the long trumpet high A. If one takes the sketch literally then he's right to do so - but I can't convince myself of it yet. If you're not sure if you should buy it or not, then buy it - you're bound to find something worthwhile in it. Personally I'm glad to have both recordings of this wonderful piece which tantalizingly shows the different direction Mahler was taking after the Ninth.

After having listened to now 6 renditions of Mahler's 10th, I have eventually become convinced that Deryck Cooke did an admirable thing in expanding and extrapolating on Mahler's only completed first movement and skeleton of the other 4 remaining movements in this 10th symphony.

I think Rattle's previous outing on EMI with the Bournemouth is a better interpretation of the 10th. I found this most recent recording to possess the following problems: (1) it seemed so much quieter than the previous recording, I had to turn my volume control up all the way until I could hear anything; (2) the most dramatic moments in the symphony such as the ending of the 1st movement is played softer and smoother and loses the emotional and spiritual power it had on the earlier rendition, and (3) the opening of the last movement is played so pianissimo and slowly it does not even convey any quality at all except that of losing consciousness and falling asleep.

Rattle should try to find and listen to an out of print CD recording on Virgin by Karl Anton Rickenbacker with the Bamberger Symphony performing symphonic fragments of Mahler. The 3rd and last track includes the most gorgeous and beautifully played performance of the 1st movement from the 10th I have ever heard. Rickenbacker proves that you can play this movement very slowly, loud enough to hear, beautifully phrased, and emotionally powerful. It comes in at an unbelievably expansive 32 minutes and avoids deliberateness and achieves spiritual ecstasy. Now that's a recording I'd like to see Virgin reissue. In fact, my biggest dream is that Virgin would ask Rickenbacker and the Bamberger to do the whole 10th in all its breathed-out glory.

I think EMI took a 2nd crack at the 10th with Rattle because some reviews of the earlier try said that the recording utilizing Grundig technology presented some problems. After listening to that recording several times, I cannot agree. Even though this 2nd recording may be slightly improved in string ensemble quality and a very nice and quiet live performance, it loses in energy and emotional power what the 1st try had. It was a VERY GOOD recording and I'm holding on to it and think Rattle did a great job the first time around. Bravo! This second one, however, I just cannot recommend.

Mahler was said to have changed his mind on his death bed when he asked his wife not to destroy his manuscript of his 10th symphony. He intended that someone might attempt to "do something with it" and Alban Berg and Ernst Krenek both took a whack at it. Deryck Cooke seems to have gotten the furthest.

After several hearings of a couple of versions and studying the liner note history of the piece's spiritual journey, I appreciated Deryck Cooke's disclaimer that his version was NOT a finished product, but a performing version. I have come to understand this subtitle to mean that this is an orchestrational experiment to allow an audience to hear the symphony in an elaborated form what it could possibly of sounded like if Mahler had been allowed to compose a bit more of it. This is fine, because I find the form it is now in to almost maintain and hold sacred the mystery of the closing bars of the 9th. Deryck Cooke emphasizes the eventual tone of triumph at the end of the 5th and last movement and allows poignant space for more meditation and contemplation of the piece. The 10th inevitably seems to be heading to the same unknown and mysterious regions of the 9th.

Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony is for me one of the most beautiful and anguished art works ever created. I've called Mahler's Tenth "the greatest piece of music never written" because it remained unfinished at the time of his death. Although parts of the symphony are complete and orchestrated, and there is a continuity of music in an abbreviated composer's shorthand known as "short score" from beginning to end, so much is left undone that Mahler originally told his wife Alma to burn it. There are three or four substantial versions of the work--the most significant are the two created by musicologist Deryck Cooke. It is the second of these, done in collaboration with Berthold Goldschmidt, Colin Matthews and David Matthews, that is recorded on this EMI Classics CD of the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Clearly this is not exactly what Mahler would have presented; but in the words of Cooke, "Mahler's music, even in its unperfected and unelaborated state, has such significance, strength and beauty, that it dwarfs into insignificance any uncertainties." I agree wholeheartedly. This is not a piece of music I would want to be without, regardless of its provenance. In the climax of the first movement, for example, the pain of loss is practically tangible.

This is a truly unique achievement--music like this has not existed before or since. Mahler stood at the cusp of the modern century; but his contribution is the last dying breath of Romanticism. All the tools and techinques of tonal music were his to command, and where expression demanded it he expanded his musical world to include sonorities well outside the traditional tonal realm. But most significantly Mahler constructed the richest, most subtle musical world I know of; one in which sudden juxtapositions and superimpositions of mood create a psychological tensions and movements that mirror real life. During the composition of the 10th Mahler visited Sigmund Freud as a patient; while there he recalled an incident when as a child he was traumatized by his father beating his mother. As he ran out of the house, he came upon an organ-grinder playing merrily away. This juxtaposition of emotions is key to understanding Mahler's music. For example, the fourth movement is a scherzo. For Beethoven and other composers the scherzo was a light movement, a joke; but the stunning intensity and contrast of emotions shown in Mahler's work belie such origins.

Another of Mahler's contributions lies in his concept of melody. For Mahler, a melody was not just to be performed on one instrument, but by the whole orchestra. His position as a conductor of world-reknowned orchestras gave him the opportunity to learn the orchestra as no one else had, and so his melodies pass from one instrument to another, from one section to another, without regard for practical limitations imposed by a single instrument. Leaps follow one another in the same direction creating melodies that literally soar, and they attain an astonishing level of feeling as a result.

My sole criticism of this disc is the performance. The tuba is decidedly weak in the opening of the last movement, and the brass, particularly the trumpets, often unpleasantly brash. This is very surprising given the orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic--indeed,there is no other recording they've made that I feel this way about. This is a live recording, but frankly the performance does not meet the demands of the piece consistently. That is not to say that it is bad, although tempi are often too slow for my taste; just inconsistent.

This is one of the best recordings of Mahler's 10th ever made. Really red blooded performance, generally slow tempi (but not boring of course because very controlled), very good sound quality. As you know, this is the best completion of this "sketched" symphony. I impressed especially with 1st Adagio and 5th Finale movement. In the last minutes of Adagio, there are very dissonance (but they're very amazing) chords, nearly atonal, and they're spine-chilling (this passages comes again in Finale). There are 2 scherzos, which the first is unregulared rhytms, the second is the ghostly, devilish fast waltz. And the finale is terrific (starts with the bass drum strokes which "death blows") and then really Mahlerian tempestous Allegro and as like the first mov. again Adagio and heavenly and calm conclusion. Simon Rattle (who may be conducted this symphony over 100 times) is clearly one of the best performer of this work, comparable with Eugene Ormandy and Mark Wigglesworh's (on a BBC broadcast) versions.

It is an essential recording and highly recommended for any classical music lovers.

This Mahler 10 IMHO says it all, and more eloquently and more eminently than all others maybe. Whatever your reservations about a 'score unfinished', this recording, I believe, completely convinces one again and again of the greatness of this ('unfinished') music AS PERFORMED HERE.
The performance in my ears sounds more 'raw' and with more 'attack' than any other recording of this music, the result of Sir Simon Rattle's tendency to make the most of all the many contrasts and sudden tempo changes, and to make every instrumental sound stand out in the orchestral soundpicture as clearly as possible. Fire and ice. Although this could also be caused by the rather direct and clear, but somewhat thin recording as such. With this specific music, this 'thinness' of sound is in my idea not a big problem, or rather an advantage. (Thinness of sound IS a problem with Sir Simon Rattle's Mahler 8, though!). But I must hasten to say that the whole aural range - from soaring and piercing highs to rumbling lows - is captured in an astoundingly sharp and beautifully natural way.
Compared with other recordings of Mahler's Tenth Symphony (many of which are different 'versions', but I would like to stick with the 'performing version' by Deryck Cooke et al here for convenience sake), like Inbal or Chailly, I like this one the best. At least it is the most convincing performance - the conductor wresting each and every possible emotion from all of the notes - that I have ever heard. This must be the most 'highly charged' (emotionally as well as purely musical) performance - combined with some of the most disciplined playing - ever recorded. There are more 'beautiful' performances maybe (take for example Inbal), but those are generally a little(?) more laid back and relaxed. This is of course the result of different, equally legitimate visions of different conductors, suiting many tastes or moods ... if such could be possible in this very explicit music: a final shout of rage and ultimately desperation at the dying of the light. Anyhow, this Mahler 10 does have the most TERRIFYING A-flat minor (Mahler's 'tragic' key) chorale (just before the infamous nine-tone chord-outburst - beyond any 'key') I have ever experienced, and I find it most unsettling to listen to. Its horror is so devastating I must really brace myself emotionally every time.
If you are drawn to this music - which is probably irrevocable - you really should have this recording. (And while the sound of the standard stereo CD is just fine, I can say that the high-resolution stereo of the audio-DVD version of this recording is even clearer and generally better and absolutely captivating. Unfortunately I am not able to listen to this recording in its six-channel Surround Sound format, so I could not comment on that, but I can only expect it would offer a truly overwhelmingly emotional experience.) Actually this shattering Mahler 10 IMHO deserves no less than six *stars*.

Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic make a very persuasive case for including Deryck Cooke's completion of Mahler's 10th Symphony as part of the standard repertoire of major symphony orchestras across the globe. This CD captures a riveting, emotionally powerful performance marred only by some slight audience noise. Otherwise, EMI's recording is close to studio excellence. I was extremely impressed with how well-balanced and vivid this concert recording sounds. Mahler fans will certainly want to include this excellent CD in their collection; but others, including myself, are thrilled to have it because it is a splendid performance. This may very well be the definitive recording of Cooke's completed version of Mahler's score.

For anyone who purports to be a true Mahlerian - those whose passion dwells in the spectrum of Mahler's thoughts, obsession with folksongs, world angst, the fear and struggle of facing death, the finding of faith in the presence of nihilistic adversity, the willingness to submit to the flights of fantasy and climax ad infinitum - this new recording of Mahler's uncompleted last symphony is a haven. Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic and the engineers responsible for this incredibly gorgeous recording have set a standard by which all other recordings must be compared. From the opening Adagio which we all know as standard repertoire to the fully realized Cooke Version of the other movements, Rattle seamlessly reveals what surely Mahler would have wanted to say had he completed this symphony before his death. This recording must now make a firm case for #10 to be judged among the more important works of Gustav Mahler - Das Lied von die Erde, Symphony #9, Ruckert Lieder, Songs of a Wayfayer, etc. Breathtakingly beautiful, this is a staggering achievement - from everyone involved and from every vantage.

I know that there are other recommendable recordings out there, but comparison of these two makes sense to me for several reasons, practical and aesthetic: one, I own them both; two, they are both excellent; three, they represent contrasting, very diffferent but equally successful interpretative stances.

Rattle's version has attracted far more attention and many more reviews, for obvious reasons, but don't let that, in combination with the fact that his Mahler cycle as a whole might not be up there with the front runners, lead you to dismiss Inbal. For some reason, Inbal and his Frankfurt orchestra really came into their own for this one.

Broadly speaking, Rattle's view of this wonderful symphony, in the equally admirable completion (OK - "performing version") by Deryck Cooke, is typical of his strengths (reflected in his latest Brahms symphony cycle) and weaknesses (an ennervated and static Requiem by the same composer) as a conductor. Occasionally, he relies too heavily on too ponderous an approach which can cause his interpretation to plough into the sand and choke. Here, although he favours much broader tempi and phrasing than Inbal, I think he gets away with it: this is a grand, monumental 10th, far more tragic and reflective than Inbal's nervier, more propulsive and hopeful account. Thus, some find Rattle nerveless and cold, others find a stately beauty in his more reserved approach.

Both versions enjoy superb sound. Rattle's is spliced from two live performances and is slightly rounder and duller - or perhaps less edgy? - than Inbal's brighter studio recording; either way, the ambience provided complements each conductor's artistic choices. Inbal's woodwind is more pungent but there is more sheen on the Berlin strings - which could be the result of both their innate orchestral sound and the engineering. Both orchestras play superbly, although some find an echo of too much smoothness in the BPO's strings - a remnant of the Karajan era, they complain.

Movement by movement, the same generalisations are confirmed in the details: the opening is more resigned and yet more tender, too, under Rattle; more violent and heroic under Inbal, especially in the shattering, climactic, nine-note dissonance and the A-flat minor chorale. Both Scherzos are weightier and more refined under Rattle; more rustic, unbuttoned and even vulgar under Inbal, especially in the Ländler sections. I love the way Inbal's brass screams and howls in the second Scherzo; Rattle is almost too civilised by comparison. In the tiny, central "Purgatorio" movement, Rattle brings darker sonorities and colouring, Inbal is sharper.

The interpretation of the vast final movement could be a clincher for some listeners: the otherwordly beauty of the flute's theme leading into the concluding cantabile section is exquisitely played by Rattle and the BPO; his broader tempo and their singing strings impart a profound melancholy which offers less of a sense of resignation and consolation than Inbal's vibrancy. Both make much of the bitterly ironic quotations from "Das Lied von der Erde". One crucial detail stands out for me: I much prefer the way in which Inbal secures a real swooping, Mahlerian portamento from the Frankfurt strings on that last leaping sixth skywards; Rattle's is almost diffident in its polite timidity.

In the last analysis, I prefer Inbal's heart-wrenching humanity to Rattle's bleaker, more detached stateliness, but make no mistake: both are deeply moving, wholly recommendable recordings.

This recording has shaken me. There is so much emotional content from this live performance of a piece so well loved by Maestro Rattle. The desperation and pain is so heartfelt in the orchestration that the reader can step right into Mahler's last years of life and experience it with him.

The fadeout at the conclusion of the final movement must rank as one of the finest ever recorded. Fadeouts such as Tchaikovsky 6 come to mind. Yet, nothing compares to this Mahler 10.

In my review of a (Wheeler) Mahler 10 recording my comments were skeptical. Were the final movements really Mahler? This recording is as close as we are going to get. The Berlin playing is so accomplished and lush. The dynamics are brought out so clearly by Maestro Rattle. Yet, this recording has a welcome gentle frailty, perhaps the unintended result of the sparse orchestration.

I have but a handful of recordings with the Berlin Phil that are not conducted by HVK or Furtwaengler. This recording is gladly a welcome addition to my collection of BPO recordings.

Mr. Cooke and Maestro Rattle with the Berliners have made a believer out of me. Essential.