Symphony No. 10 (Mahler)
Encyclopedia
The Symphony No. 10 by Gustav Mahler
was written in the summer of 1910, and was his final composition. At the time of Mahler's death the composition was substantially complete in the form of a continuous draft; but not being fully elaborated at every point, and mostly not orchestrated, it was not performable in that state.
, and ended his efforts in September the same year. He never managed to complete the orchestral draft before his premature death at the age of fifty from a streptococcal
infection of the blood.
Mahler's drafts and sketches for the Tenth Symphony comprise 72 pages of full score, 50 pages of continuous short score draft (2 pages of which are missing), and a further 44 pages of preliminary drafts, sketches, and inserts. In the form in which Mahler left it, the symphony consists of five movements:
The parts in short score were usually in four staves. The designations of some movements were altered as work progressed: for example the second movement was initially envisaged as a finale. The fourth movement was also relocated in multiple instances. Mahler then started on an orchestral draft of the symphony, which begins to bear some signs of haste after the halfway point of the first movement. He had gotten as far as orchestrating the first two movements and the opening 30 bars of the third movement when he had to put aside work on the Tenth to make final revisions to the Ninth Symphony
.
The circumstances surrounding the composition of the Tenth were highly unusual. Mahler was at the height of his compositional powers, but his personal life was in complete disarray, most recently compounded by the revelation that his young wife Alma had had an affair with the architect Walter Gropius
. Mahler sought counselling from Sigmund Freud
, and on the verge of its successful première in Munich, dedicated the Eighth Symphony
to Alma in a desperate attempt to repair the breach. The unsettled frame of Mahler's mind found expression in the despairing comments (many addressed to Alma) written on the manuscript of the Tenth, and must have influenced its composition: on the final page of the short score in the final movement, Mahler wrote, "für dich leben! für dich sterben!" (To live for you! To die for you!) and the exclamation "Almschi!" underneath the last soaring phrase.
The instrumentation of the symphony
cannot be defined precisely, owing to the incompleteness of the orchestral draft. However, in the short score there are occasional indications of instrumentation, and some of the orchestration may be surmised from the three movements of the orchestral draft, from which the probable forces include: four flute
s, one piccolo
, four oboe
s, four clarinet
s in B flat and A, with one doubling E flat, three bassoon
s, two contrabassoon
s, four horn
s, four trumpet
s, four trombone
s, a tuba
, two sets of timpani
, tam tam
, a large muffled military drum, harp
and strings
(first and second violin
s, viola
s, cello
s and double bass
es). The surviving orchestration does not specify a cor anglais (English horn) or a bass clarinet
, bass drum
, cymbal
s, and triangle
, although Mahler regularly used these instruments in his other symphonies.
famously expressed the opinion that no one could possibly write a Tenth Symphony without being close to the hereafter (see Curse of the ninth
); and a mistaken report led Richard Specht
to suggest Mahler wanted the manuscript burned after his death. Hence it was only in the 1920s that Alma Mahler-Werfel asked the composer Ernst Krenek
to make a fair copy of Mahler's orchestral draft for a festival of performances of Mahler works, and at about the same time some of the manuscripts were published by the company of Paul Zsolnay in facsimile (1924). The facsimile made evident that the stress of Mahler's final year had not adversely affected the composition, and that the draft contained passages of great beauty. Much of the manuscript, however, was too difficult to read and seemingly too chaotic for the unbroken continuity of the music to be clearly apparent.
In 1924 Krenek made a fair copy of only the first (Adagio) and third (Purgatorio) movements, and might have made a fair copy of the second movement, but as Mahler's draft of the Scherzo was very much patchier this was evidently less feasible. Alban Berg
was enlisted to proofread the work, but his suggested corrections were never incorporated, while at the same time some unauthorised changes were introduced, possibly by one of the conductors of the first two performances, Franz Schalk
and Alexander von Zemlinsky
. Krenek is supposed to have renounced the changes to his version, which was subsequently published. Performances of the Krenek-Schalk/Zemlinsky version have been moderately successful, but the third movement is not generally convincing when taken out of context between the second and fourth movements: it is possible some of the conductors who have refused to perform the Tenth, most famously Bruno Walter
and Leonard Bernstein
, took exception to such a piecemeal representation.
In 1923, Alma had also sent a copy of the score to Willem Mengelberg
in Amsterdam
with the addition that two parts (obviously, the Adagio and Purgatorio) were 'absolutely performable'. Briefly after Schalk performed Krenek's score (with his own additions) on October 12, 1924, Alma sent what is believed to be Schalk's score to Mengelberg, who subsequently prepared his own edition with the aid of his secondant Cornelis Dopper
. This version uses a larger orchestra and makes significant changes in dynamic markings and tempi. It was premiered on November 27, 1924, in the Amsterdam
Concertgebouw
, and subsequently played a number of times under Mengelberg's baton.
It was soon realised that a performing version of only two movements did not give listeners a clear idea of the entire symphony, let alone constitute a complete artistic statement, so in the 1940s the American Mahler enthusiast Jack Diether tried to encourage several notable composers to realise the work. Figures such as Shostakovich
, Schoenberg
, and Britten
(all of whom had been considerably influenced by the works of Mahler), refused, and instead the task was taken up by musicologists: early attempts at realising the entire work were made in America by Clinton Carpenter (completed 1949, subsequently revised 1966), in Germany by Hans Wollschläger
(1954–1962, withdrawn), and in England by Joe Wheeler
(1953–1965) and Deryck Cooke
.
have, since the late 1960s, become the basis for most performances and recordings.
A first, still incomplete performing version by Cooke (1959–1960) stemmed from a performance and an associated lecture for radio broadcast on the BBC Third Programme, marking the centenary of Mahler's birth. This was aired on 19 December 1960, with the Philharmonia
Orchestra conducted by Berthold Goldschmidt
, who also assisted with the production of Cooke's edition. At its first performance Cooke's realisation of the final movement proved to be a revelation to listeners, and Cooke resolved to complete the orchestration and elaboration of the Scherzo movements, which required much more compositional work than he had time for.
Alma Mahler, who had at one point taken the views of Bruno Walter
to heart and demanded a veto on further performances of the Cooke performing version, actually changed her mind upon seeing Cooke's revised score and hearing the recording. She wrote Cooke a letter in English, postmarked New York, 8 May 1963, which Cooke includes in the preface pages to the score:
Cooke's revised and completed version, conducted by Goldschmidt, was premièred at the Proms
on 13 August 1964 and recorded soon after. After Alma's death, also in 1964, her daughter Anna allowed Cooke access to the full set of manuscript sketches, many of which had not been published four decades earlier. In the light of these Cooke made a revised performing version in association with the British composers Colin
and David Matthews
between 1966 and 1972, and thereafter his final version before his death in 1976. The release of these pages also prompted the International Gustav Mahler Society in Vienna to issue another, more complete collection of Mahler's manuscripts in facsimile (Ricke, 1967). This revised edition of Cooke's first complete score was published in 1976, shortly before Cooke's death. A further revision, with mostly minor changes made by the three surviving collaborators, appeared in print in 1989.
The completion by Joseph Wheeler
dates from 1953 to 1965, and like Cooke he also refined his ideas several times, so the final version of 1965 was actually the fourth iteration; the American composer Remo Mazzetti Jr. considers Wheeler's fourth version to be the closest to Mahler's late orchestral style.
In recent years several further realisations of the symphony have been attempted: Remo Mazzetti initially made his 1989 version from dissatisfaction with the existing Cooke, Carpenter, and Wheeler editions, though the spur of preparing a performance of Wheeler's version in 1997 led him to recant his earlier view. Of his own revised version he remarked, "I really believe I got things right this time". Two more completions have been produced since, by the conductor Rudolf Barshai
(2000), and a joint effort by Nicola Samale
and Giuseppe Mazzucca (2001). All have been performed and recorded with the version by Samale and Mazzucca now commercially released in April 2008 by Octavia Records through Exton from Japan with Martin Sieghart conducting the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra.
A new version by the Israeli-American conductor Yoel Gamzou was premiered in Berlin by the author conducting the International Mahler Orchestra in September 2010.
A project to recompose and recontextualise Mahler's 10th Symphony using samples and electronic effects was completed by Matthew Herbert
and released by Deutsche Grammophon
in 2010.
and the English pianist Christopher White in 2010. It has since been recorded with White as soloist.
The very opening of the symphony maintains a connection with the final movement of the Ninth. A long, bleak Andante melody for violas alone leads to the exposition of the slow first theme in the strings. This theme is developed and another, lighter theme is exposed. The music dies away and the violas repeat the opening theme. With slight variation, the opening adagio is repeated and developed in a growing intensity. This also soon dies away, leaving several variations upon the more light second theme. This works up to the climax: an extremely powerful variation upon the first theme. This intense restatement culminates in a terrifying dissonance. The music after this massive outburst becomes very quiet and does not suggest any resolution to the darkness of the climax.
The second movement, the first of two brilliant Scherzo movements, consists of two main ideas, the first of which is notated in consistently changing metres, which would have proved a challenge to Mahler's conducting technique had he lived to perform the symphony. This alternates with a joyful and typically Mahlerian Ländler. It is almost certainly this movement Paul Stefan had in mind when he described the symphony as containing "gaiety, even exuberance" (Cooke's translation).
The Purgatorio movement (originally entitled Purgatorio oder Inferno —Purgatory or Hell— but the word "Inferno" was struck out) is a brief vignette presenting a struggle between alternately bleak and carefree melodies with a perpetuum mobile
accompaniment, that are soon subverted by a diabolical undercurrent of more cynical music. The short movement fails to end in limbo though, as after a brief recapitulation a sudden harp arpeggio and gong stroke pull the rug out from under it; it is consigned to perdition by a final grim utterance from the double basses.
The scene is now set for the peculiarities of the second scherzo, which has a somewhat driven and harried character, and this also has significant connections to Mahler's recent work: the sorrowful first movement of Das Lied von der Erde
, Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde. There is an annotation on the cover of the draft to the effect that in this movement "The Devil dances with me", and at the very end Mahler wrote "Ah! God! Farewell my lyre!". Cooke's version finishes with a percussion coda employing both timpanists, bass drum, and a large military drum which is to be muffled, that leads directly into the final slow movement. This scherzo does not resemble the second scherzo in spirit; it is far more grave and sinister. Some consider it to be Mahler's last "Horror Scherzo".
The use of the military drum stems from a funeral procession that Mahler once observed: one day in the winter of 1907 when the Mahlers were staying in New York, the cortége of a deceased fire chief passed way below their hotel window, and from high up the only sound that could be heard was the muffled stroke of a large bass drum. The introduction to the fifth movement re-enacts this scene as a rising line on tubas supported by two double bassoons slowly tries to make headway and is repeatedly negated by the loud (but muffled) drum strokes.
The emotional weight of the symphony is resolved by the long final movement, which incorporates and ties together music from the earlier movements, whereby the opening passage of the symphony, now transferred to the horns, is found to be the answer to tame the savage dissonance that had racked the end of the first movement. The music of the flute solo that was heard after the introductory funeral scene can now return to close the symphony peacefully, and unexpectedly, in the principal major key. The draft for this movement reveals that Mahler had originally written the ending in B-flat major, but in the process of revision worked the same music into F-sharp major.
and his Philadelphia Orchestra
. Several notable recordings of the revised Cooke (version II) have been made: the first, made by Wyn Morris
in 1972 has recently been reissued. Simon Rattle
's 1980 recording with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra gave the former percussionist an opportunity to make some pointed revisions, most noticeably giving prominence to the military drum in the fifth movement, which is played as loudly as possible without being muffled or dampened.
Other notable recordings include those of: Kurt Sanderling
– Berlin Symphony Orchestra – 1979; Cooke II – employing revisions/alterations by Sanderling himself and Berthold Goldschmidt; Riccardo Chailly
– Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra – 1986; Cooke II; Eliahu Inbal
– Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra – 1993; Cooke II, and Rattle again – this time with the Berlin Philharmonic – 1999; Cooke III, again with alterations by Rattle. Deryck Cooke's second version was also recorded by James Levine
and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Adagio movement from this recording was originally recorded and released in 1976, as the fourth side of a 2 LP set containing a complete performance of the 5th symphony, recorded that same year. The remaining movements of Cooke II were recorded in 1980. The same performance of the 1976 Adagio was incorporated with the 1980 recording of the remainder in a different 2 Lp set, with no apparent differences in sound quality.
Some conductors, notably Leonard Bernstein
, Pierre Boulez
, Michael Tilson Thomas
, Rafael Kubelík
and Claudio Abbado
have chosen to perform and record just the Adagio, since they interpret it as the only movement completed by Mahler himself. Other noted Mahlerians, such as Georg Solti
, omit the Tenth from their repertoire altogether.
In 2011, to mark the centenary of Mahler's death, Testament Records
released a 3 CD set featuring Cooke's BBC lecture, the 1960 studio performance of the incomplete version as well as the 1964 world premiere conducted by Goldschmidt.
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
was written in the summer of 1910, and was his final composition. At the time of Mahler's death the composition was substantially complete in the form of a continuous draft; but not being fully elaborated at every point, and mostly not orchestrated, it was not performable in that state.
Composition
Mahler started his work on his Tenth Symphony in July 1910 in ToblachToblach
Toblach is a comune/Gemeinde in South Tyrol in the Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located in the Puster Valley about 110 km northeast of the city of Trento and about 70 km northeast of the city of Bolzano, on the border with Austria.As of November 30, 2010, it had a...
, and ended his efforts in September the same year. He never managed to complete the orchestral draft before his premature death at the age of fifty from a streptococcal
Streptococcus
Streptococcus is a genus of spherical Gram-positive bacteria belonging to the phylum Firmicutes and the lactic acid bacteria group. Cellular division occurs along a single axis in these bacteria, and thus they grow in chains or pairs, hence the name — from Greek στρεπτος streptos, meaning...
infection of the blood.
Mahler's drafts and sketches for the Tenth Symphony comprise 72 pages of full score, 50 pages of continuous short score draft (2 pages of which are missing), and a further 44 pages of preliminary drafts, sketches, and inserts. In the form in which Mahler left it, the symphony consists of five movements:
- Andante – Adagio: 275 barsBar (music)In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
drafted in orchestral and short score - Scherzo: 522 bars drafted in orchestral and short score
- Purgatorio. Allegro moderatoTempoIn musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
: 170 bars drafted in short score, the first 30 bars of which were also drafted in orchestral score - [Scherzo. Nicht zu schnell]: about 579 bars drafted in short score
- Finale. Langsam, schwer: 400 bars drafted in short score
The parts in short score were usually in four staves. The designations of some movements were altered as work progressed: for example the second movement was initially envisaged as a finale. The fourth movement was also relocated in multiple instances. Mahler then started on an orchestral draft of the symphony, which begins to bear some signs of haste after the halfway point of the first movement. He had gotten as far as orchestrating the first two movements and the opening 30 bars of the third movement when he had to put aside work on the Tenth to make final revisions to the Ninth Symphony
Symphony No. 9 (Mahler)
The Symphony No. 9 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1909 and 1910, and was the last symphony that he completed.Though the work is often described as being in the key of D major, the tonal scheme of the symphony as whole is progressive...
.
The circumstances surrounding the composition of the Tenth were highly unusual. Mahler was at the height of his compositional powers, but his personal life was in complete disarray, most recently compounded by the revelation that his young wife Alma had had an affair with the architect Walter Gropius
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
. Mahler sought counselling from Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
, and on the verge of its successful première in Munich, dedicated the Eighth Symphony
Symphony No. 8 (Mahler)
The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major by Gustav Mahler is one of the largest-scale choral works in the classical concert repertoire. Because it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces it is frequently called the "Symphony of a Thousand", although the work is often performed with fewer than a...
to Alma in a desperate attempt to repair the breach. The unsettled frame of Mahler's mind found expression in the despairing comments (many addressed to Alma) written on the manuscript of the Tenth, and must have influenced its composition: on the final page of the short score in the final movement, Mahler wrote, "für dich leben! für dich sterben!" (To live for you! To die for you!) and the exclamation "Almschi!" underneath the last soaring phrase.
The instrumentation of the symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
cannot be defined precisely, owing to the incompleteness of the orchestral draft. However, in the short score there are occasional indications of instrumentation, and some of the orchestration may be surmised from the three movements of the orchestral draft, from which the probable forces include: four flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s, one piccolo
Piccolo
The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
, four oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, four clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s in B flat and A, with one doubling E flat, three bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s, two contrabassoon
Contrabassoon
The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...
s, four horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
s, four trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s, four trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s, a tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
, two sets of timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
, tam tam
Gong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
, a large muffled military drum, harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
and strings
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
(first and second violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
s, viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
s, cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
s and double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
es). The surviving orchestration does not specify a cor anglais (English horn) or a bass clarinet
Bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
, bass drum
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
, cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s, and triangle
Triangle (instrument)
The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
, although Mahler regularly used these instruments in his other symphonies.
Early attempts
After Mahler's death there was no immediate attempt to complete the symphony, or render it in a state where it could be performed, although figures such as Paul Stefan described the high quality of the work as drafted. Arnold SchönbergArnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
famously expressed the opinion that no one could possibly write a Tenth Symphony without being close to the hereafter (see Curse of the ninth
Curse of the ninth
The curse of the ninth is a superstition connected with the history of classical music. In essence, it is the belief that a "ninth symphony" is destined to be a composer's last; i.e. that he or she will be "fated" to die after writing it, or before completing a "tenth"...
); and a mistaken report led Richard Specht
Richard Specht
Richard Specht was an Austrian lyricist, dramatist, musicologist and writer.Specht is most well known for his writings on classical music, and in his time was seen as a leading music journalist...
to suggest Mahler wanted the manuscript burned after his death. Hence it was only in the 1920s that Alma Mahler-Werfel asked the composer Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek was an Austrian of Czech origin and, from 1945, American composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now , a study of Johannes Ockeghem , and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music...
to make a fair copy of Mahler's orchestral draft for a festival of performances of Mahler works, and at about the same time some of the manuscripts were published by the company of Paul Zsolnay in facsimile (1924). The facsimile made evident that the stress of Mahler's final year had not adversely affected the composition, and that the draft contained passages of great beauty. Much of the manuscript, however, was too difficult to read and seemingly too chaotic for the unbroken continuity of the music to be clearly apparent.
In 1924 Krenek made a fair copy of only the first (Adagio) and third (Purgatorio) movements, and might have made a fair copy of the second movement, but as Mahler's draft of the Scherzo was very much patchier this was evidently less feasible. Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
was enlisted to proofread the work, but his suggested corrections were never incorporated, while at the same time some unauthorised changes were introduced, possibly by one of the conductors of the first two performances, Franz Schalk
Franz Schalk
Franz Schalk was an Austrian conductor. From 1918 to 1929 he was director of the Vienna State Opera, a post he held jointly with Richard Strauss from 1919 to 1924. Later, Schalk was involved in the establishment of the Salzburg Festival.-Biography:Schalk was born in Vienna, Austria, where he later...
and Alexander von Zemlinsky
Alexander von Zemlinsky
Alexander Zemlinsky or Alexander von Zemlinsky was an Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher.-Early life:...
. Krenek is supposed to have renounced the changes to his version, which was subsequently published. Performances of the Krenek-Schalk/Zemlinsky version have been moderately successful, but the third movement is not generally convincing when taken out of context between the second and fourth movements: it is possible some of the conductors who have refused to perform the Tenth, most famously Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...
and Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, took exception to such a piecemeal representation.
In 1923, Alma had also sent a copy of the score to Willem Mengelberg
Willem Mengelberg
Joseph Willem Mengelberg was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.- Biography :...
in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
with the addition that two parts (obviously, the Adagio and Purgatorio) were 'absolutely performable'. Briefly after Schalk performed Krenek's score (with his own additions) on October 12, 1924, Alma sent what is believed to be Schalk's score to Mengelberg, who subsequently prepared his own edition with the aid of his secondant Cornelis Dopper
Cornelis Dopper
Cornelis 'Kees' Dopper was a Dutch composer, conductor and teacher.-Reputation:Dopper's reputation as a composer has suffered from the accusation of being 'too German' for much of his career, and still haunts him to this day...
. This version uses a larger orchestra and makes significant changes in dynamic markings and tempi. It was premiered on November 27, 1924, in the Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
Concertgebouw
Concertgebouw
The Concertgebouw is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" literally translates into English as "concert building"...
, and subsequently played a number of times under Mengelberg's baton.
It was soon realised that a performing version of only two movements did not give listeners a clear idea of the entire symphony, let alone constitute a complete artistic statement, so in the 1940s the American Mahler enthusiast Jack Diether tried to encourage several notable composers to realise the work. Figures such as Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
, Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
, and Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
(all of whom had been considerably influenced by the works of Mahler), refused, and instead the task was taken up by musicologists: early attempts at realising the entire work were made in America by Clinton Carpenter (completed 1949, subsequently revised 1966), in Germany by Hans Wollschläger
Hans Wollschläger
thumb|right|150px| Signature, 1988Hans Wollschläger was a German writer, translator, historian, and editor of German literature.-Biography:...
(1954–1962, withdrawn), and in England by Joe Wheeler
Joseph Wheeler (musicologist)
Joseph Hugh Wheeler was a British musician and musicologist.A civil servant by profession, Wheeler's most famous work was his realisation of Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony which he began in 1952 and took him some thirteen years to complete.Wheeler was born in Bromley, England, the son of a...
(1953–1965) and Deryck Cooke
Deryck Cooke
Deryck Cooke was a British musician, musicologist and broadcaster.-Life:Cooke was born in Leicester to a poor and working class family; his father died when he was a child, but his mother was able to afford piano lessons. Cooke acquired a brilliant technique and began to compose...
.
Deryck Cooke's versions
The various realisations produced by CookeDeryck Cooke
Deryck Cooke was a British musician, musicologist and broadcaster.-Life:Cooke was born in Leicester to a poor and working class family; his father died when he was a child, but his mother was able to afford piano lessons. Cooke acquired a brilliant technique and began to compose...
have, since the late 1960s, become the basis for most performances and recordings.
A first, still incomplete performing version by Cooke (1959–1960) stemmed from a performance and an associated lecture for radio broadcast on the BBC Third Programme, marking the centenary of Mahler's birth. This was aired on 19 December 1960, with the Philharmonia
Philharmonia
The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...
Orchestra conducted by Berthold Goldschmidt
Berthold Goldschmidt
Berthold Goldschmidt was a German Jewish composer who spent most of his life in England...
, who also assisted with the production of Cooke's edition. At its first performance Cooke's realisation of the final movement proved to be a revelation to listeners, and Cooke resolved to complete the orchestration and elaboration of the Scherzo movements, which required much more compositional work than he had time for.
Alma Mahler, who had at one point taken the views of Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...
to heart and demanded a veto on further performances of the Cooke performing version, actually changed her mind upon seeing Cooke's revised score and hearing the recording. She wrote Cooke a letter in English, postmarked New York, 8 May 1963, which Cooke includes in the preface pages to the score:
Dear Mr. Cooke,
Mr. Harold ByrnsHarold ByrnsHarold Byrns was a German-American conductor and orchestrator.He was born Hans Bernstein in Hanover, Germany in 1903. His father had formed a chamber music society in Hanover, and he followed in his father's footsteps...
visited me here in New York. Today he read me your excellent articles on Mahler's Tenth Symphony and [showed me] your equally authoritative score. Afterwards I expressed my desire to finally listen to the London BBC tape. I was so moved by this performance that I immediately asked Mr. Byrns to play the work a second time. I then realised that the time had come when I must reconsider my previous decision not to permit the performance of this work. I have now decided once and for all to give you full permission to go ahead with performances in any part of the world. I enclose [a] copy of my letter of even date to [the] BBC.
Sincerely yours,
- Alma Maria Mahler
Cooke's revised and completed version, conducted by Goldschmidt, was premièred at the Proms
The Proms
The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...
on 13 August 1964 and recorded soon after. After Alma's death, also in 1964, her daughter Anna allowed Cooke access to the full set of manuscript sketches, many of which had not been published four decades earlier. In the light of these Cooke made a revised performing version in association with the British composers Colin
Colin Matthews
Colin Matthews OBE is an English composer of classical music.-Early life and education:Matthews was born in London in 1946; his older brother is the composer David Matthews. He read classics at the University of Nottingham, and then studied composition there with Arnold Whittall, and with Nicholas...
and David Matthews
David Matthews (composer)
David Matthews is an English composer of mainly orchestral, chamber, vocal and piano works.- Life :He was born in London into a family that was 'not especially' musical; the desire to compose did not manifest itself until he was sixteen, and for a time he and his younger brother Colin Matthews,...
between 1966 and 1972, and thereafter his final version before his death in 1976. The release of these pages also prompted the International Gustav Mahler Society in Vienna to issue another, more complete collection of Mahler's manuscripts in facsimile (Ricke, 1967). This revised edition of Cooke's first complete score was published in 1976, shortly before Cooke's death. A further revision, with mostly minor changes made by the three surviving collaborators, appeared in print in 1989.
Summary of the Cooke versions
Cooke's performing editions of the Tenth Symphony may be summarised as follows:- Cooke "0" – (1960, unpublished): BBC performance, completed 1st, 3rd and 5th movements plus partial realisations of the 2nd and 4th movements; presented as part of a lecture-demonstration
- Cooke I – first complete performing version (1960–1964; unpublished)
-
- Premiered on 13 August 1964 by Berthold Goldschmidt; basis for the recordings by Eugene OrmandyEugene OrmandyEugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five...
(1965/66) and Martinon (1966)- Cooke II – second performing version (1966–1972; appeared in print in 1976)
- premiered on 15 October 1972 by Wyn Morris; basis for all recordings from 1972 to 1992
- Cooke III – a slightly revised form of the 1976 score (printed in 1989)
- various reading errors corrected, some minor changes made in orchestration, and the whole enhanced by considerations concerning performance; the editorial input coming from David and Colin Matthews and Berthold Goldschmidt. (Those pages which have been altered are marked with an asterisk.)
- Premiered on 13 August 1964 by Berthold Goldschmidt; basis for the recordings by Eugene Ormandy
Other complete versions
Clinton Carpenter (1921–2005) started working on his edition long before Cooke, and called his score a "completion" rather than a "performing version". Although he finished his version in 1949 (revising the work in 1966), it had to wait until 1983 for a performance. Carpenter did not merely review Mahler's symphonic output to guide him in his effort, but went so far as to include actual quotations from every Mahler symphony in his edition. The view has been expressed that much of this process of recomposition gives the impression that he has written his own symphony using Mahler's as a basis.The completion by Joseph Wheeler
Joseph Wheeler (musicologist)
Joseph Hugh Wheeler was a British musician and musicologist.A civil servant by profession, Wheeler's most famous work was his realisation of Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony which he began in 1952 and took him some thirteen years to complete.Wheeler was born in Bromley, England, the son of a...
dates from 1953 to 1965, and like Cooke he also refined his ideas several times, so the final version of 1965 was actually the fourth iteration; the American composer Remo Mazzetti Jr. considers Wheeler's fourth version to be the closest to Mahler's late orchestral style.
In recent years several further realisations of the symphony have been attempted: Remo Mazzetti initially made his 1989 version from dissatisfaction with the existing Cooke, Carpenter, and Wheeler editions, though the spur of preparing a performance of Wheeler's version in 1997 led him to recant his earlier view. Of his own revised version he remarked, "I really believe I got things right this time". Two more completions have been produced since, by the conductor Rudolf Barshai
Rudolf Barshai
Rudolf Borisovich Barshai was a Soviet/Russian conductor and violist.Barshai was born in Stanitsa Lobinskaya, Krasnodar Krai, and studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Lev Tseitlin and Vadim Borisovsky. He performed as a soloist as well as together with Sviatoslav Richter, David Oistrakh, and...
(2000), and a joint effort by Nicola Samale
Nicola Samale
Nicola Samale , is a composer and conductor.- Biography :...
and Giuseppe Mazzucca (2001). All have been performed and recorded with the version by Samale and Mazzucca now commercially released in April 2008 by Octavia Records through Exton from Japan with Martin Sieghart conducting the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra.
A new version by the Israeli-American conductor Yoel Gamzou was premiered in Berlin by the author conducting the International Mahler Orchestra in September 2010.
A project to recompose and recontextualise Mahler's 10th Symphony using samples and electronic effects was completed by Matthew Herbert
Matthew Herbert
Matthew Herbert , also known as Herbert, Doctor Rockit, Radio Boy, Mr. Vertigo, Transformer, and Wishmountain, is a British electronic musician...
and released by Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
in 2010.
Piano transcription
A piano transcription of the score (in the Cooke edition) was made by the British composer Ronald StevensonRonald Stevenson
Ronald Stevenson is a British composer, pianist, and writer about music.-Biography:The son of a Scottish father and English mother, Stevenson studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music , studying composition with Richard Hall and piano with Iso Elinson, graduating with distinction...
and the English pianist Christopher White in 2010. It has since been recorded with White as soloist.
Musical form
Mahler occasionally used a five-movement structure for his symphonies rather than the more traditional four-movement structure, and for the Tenth he devised a convincing symmetrical structure with two large slow movements enclosing a core of faster inner movements, at the very centre of which is the deceptive Purgatorio movement.The very opening of the symphony maintains a connection with the final movement of the Ninth. A long, bleak Andante melody for violas alone leads to the exposition of the slow first theme in the strings. This theme is developed and another, lighter theme is exposed. The music dies away and the violas repeat the opening theme. With slight variation, the opening adagio is repeated and developed in a growing intensity. This also soon dies away, leaving several variations upon the more light second theme. This works up to the climax: an extremely powerful variation upon the first theme. This intense restatement culminates in a terrifying dissonance. The music after this massive outburst becomes very quiet and does not suggest any resolution to the darkness of the climax.
The second movement, the first of two brilliant Scherzo movements, consists of two main ideas, the first of which is notated in consistently changing metres, which would have proved a challenge to Mahler's conducting technique had he lived to perform the symphony. This alternates with a joyful and typically Mahlerian Ländler. It is almost certainly this movement Paul Stefan had in mind when he described the symphony as containing "gaiety, even exuberance" (Cooke's translation).
The Purgatorio movement (originally entitled Purgatorio oder Inferno —Purgatory or Hell— but the word "Inferno" was struck out) is a brief vignette presenting a struggle between alternately bleak and carefree melodies with a perpetuum mobile
Perpetuum mobile
Perpetuum mobile , moto perpetuo , mouvement perpétuel , movimiento perpetuo , literally meaning "perpetual motion", means two distinct things:#pieces of music, or parts of pieces, characterised by a continuous steady stream of notes, usually at a...
accompaniment, that are soon subverted by a diabolical undercurrent of more cynical music. The short movement fails to end in limbo though, as after a brief recapitulation a sudden harp arpeggio and gong stroke pull the rug out from under it; it is consigned to perdition by a final grim utterance from the double basses.
The scene is now set for the peculiarities of the second scherzo, which has a somewhat driven and harried character, and this also has significant connections to Mahler's recent work: the sorrowful first movement of Das Lied von der Erde
Das Lied von der Erde
Das Lied von der Erde is a large-scale work for two vocal soloists and orchestra by the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler...
, Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde. There is an annotation on the cover of the draft to the effect that in this movement "The Devil dances with me", and at the very end Mahler wrote "Ah! God! Farewell my lyre!". Cooke's version finishes with a percussion coda employing both timpanists, bass drum, and a large military drum which is to be muffled, that leads directly into the final slow movement. This scherzo does not resemble the second scherzo in spirit; it is far more grave and sinister. Some consider it to be Mahler's last "Horror Scherzo".
The use of the military drum stems from a funeral procession that Mahler once observed: one day in the winter of 1907 when the Mahlers were staying in New York, the cortége of a deceased fire chief passed way below their hotel window, and from high up the only sound that could be heard was the muffled stroke of a large bass drum. The introduction to the fifth movement re-enacts this scene as a rising line on tubas supported by two double bassoons slowly tries to make headway and is repeatedly negated by the loud (but muffled) drum strokes.
The emotional weight of the symphony is resolved by the long final movement, which incorporates and ties together music from the earlier movements, whereby the opening passage of the symphony, now transferred to the horns, is found to be the answer to tame the savage dissonance that had racked the end of the first movement. The music of the flute solo that was heard after the introductory funeral scene can now return to close the symphony peacefully, and unexpectedly, in the principal major key. The draft for this movement reveals that Mahler had originally written the ending in B-flat major, but in the process of revision worked the same music into F-sharp major.
Recordings of Mahler's Tenth
The original, incomplete Cooke version was first recorded by the BBC as noted above; the first complete version (denoted Cooke I) was also premièred by Goldschmidt, this time with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1964; the first commercial recording appeared in 1966 (recording date: 1965), conducted by Eugene OrmandyEugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five...
and his Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
. Several notable recordings of the revised Cooke (version II) have been made: the first, made by Wyn Morris
Wyn Morris
Wyn Morris was a Welsh conductor.Morris was born in Trellech, Monmouthshire, Wales, and did not speak English until he was aged 7. He was especially acknowledged for his interpretations of Gustav Mahler's works, which he recorded almost complete during the 1960s and 1970s...
in 1972 has recently been reissued. Simon Rattle
Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic ....
's 1980 recording with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra gave the former percussionist an opportunity to make some pointed revisions, most noticeably giving prominence to the military drum in the fifth movement, which is played as loudly as possible without being muffled or dampened.
Other notable recordings include those of: Kurt Sanderling
Kurt Sanderling
Kurt Sanderling, CBE was a German conductor.-Biography:Kurt Sanderling was born in Arys, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire to Jewish parents. After early work at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, he left for the Soviet Union in 1936, where he worked with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra...
– Berlin Symphony Orchestra – 1979; Cooke II – employing revisions/alterations by Sanderling himself and Berthold Goldschmidt; Riccardo Chailly
Riccardo Chailly
Riccardo Chailly, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian conductor. He started his career as an opera conductor and gradually extended his repertoire to encompass symphonic music.-Biography:...
– Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra – 1986; Cooke II; Eliahu Inbal
Eliahu Inbal
Eliahu Inbal is an Israeli conductor.Inbal studied violin at the Israeli Academy of Music and took composition lessons with Paul Ben-Haim...
– Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra – 1993; Cooke II, and Rattle again – this time with the Berlin Philharmonic – 1999; Cooke III, again with alterations by Rattle. Deryck Cooke's second version was also recorded by James Levine
James Levine
James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has...
and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Adagio movement from this recording was originally recorded and released in 1976, as the fourth side of a 2 LP set containing a complete performance of the 5th symphony, recorded that same year. The remaining movements of Cooke II were recorded in 1980. The same performance of the 1976 Adagio was incorporated with the 1980 recording of the remainder in a different 2 Lp set, with no apparent differences in sound quality.
Some conductors, notably Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
, Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony Orchestra.-Early years:...
, Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Jeroným Kubelík was a Czech conductor and composer.-Early life:Kubelík was born in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, today's Czech Republic. He was the sixth child of the Bohemian violinist Jan Kubelík, whom the younger Kubelík described as "a kind of god to me." His mother was a Hungarian...
and Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...
have chosen to perform and record just the Adagio, since they interpret it as the only movement completed by Mahler himself. Other noted Mahlerians, such as Georg Solti
Georg Solti
Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...
, omit the Tenth from their repertoire altogether.
In 2011, to mark the centenary of Mahler's death, Testament Records
Testament Records
Testament Records was an American independent record label based in Philadelphia, later Chicago, then Pasadena, and founded in 1963 by Down Beat magazine editor and writer Pete Welding....
released a 3 CD set featuring Cooke's BBC lecture, the 1960 studio performance of the incomplete version as well as the 1964 world premiere conducted by Goldschmidt.
Synopsis: Recordings of the completed symphony
| Year | Conductor | Orchestra | Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | Berthold Goldschmidt Berthold Goldschmidt Berthold Goldschmidt was a German Jewish composer who spent most of his life in England... |
Philharmonia Orchestra Philharmonia Orchestra The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke... |
Cooke Incomplete First Version from 1960 |
| 1964 | Berthold Goldschmidt Berthold Goldschmidt Berthold Goldschmidt was a German Jewish composer who spent most of his life in England... |
London Symphony Orchestra London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:... |
Cooke I 1964 World Premiere |
| 1966 | Eugene Ormandy Eugene Ormandy Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five... |
Philadelphia Orchestra Philadelphia Orchestra The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900... |
Cooke I |
| 1966 | Jean Martinon Jean Martinon Jean Martinon was a French conductor and composer.-Biography:Martinon was born in Lyon, where he began his education, going on to the Conservatoire de Paris to study under Albert Roussel for composition, under Charles Munch and Roger Désormière for conducting, under Vincent d'Indy for harmony,... |
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chicago Symphony Orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival... |
Cooke I |
| 1972 | Wyn Morris Wyn Morris Wyn Morris was a Welsh conductor.Morris was born in Trellech, Monmouthshire, Wales, and did not speak English until he was aged 7. He was especially acknowledged for his interpretations of Gustav Mahler's works, which he recorded almost complete during the 1960s and 1970s... |
New Philharmonia Orchestra Philharmonia The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke... |
Cooke II |
| 1979 | Kurt Sanderling Kurt Sanderling Kurt Sanderling, CBE was a German conductor.-Biography:Kurt Sanderling was born in Arys, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire to Jewish parents. After early work at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, he left for the Soviet Union in 1936, where he worked with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra... |
Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester | Cooke II |
| 1980 | James Levine James Levine James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has... |
Philadelphia Orchestra Philadelphia Orchestra The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900... |
Cooke II |
| 1980 | Simon Rattle Simon Rattle Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic .... |
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is an English orchestra. Originally based in Bournemouth, the BSO moved its offices to the adjacent town of Poole in 1979.... |
Cooke II |
| 1986 | Riccardo Chailly Riccardo Chailly Riccardo Chailly, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian conductor. He started his career as an opera conductor and gradually extended his repertoire to encompass symphonic music.-Biography:... |
Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin | Cooke II |
| 1992 | Eliahu Inbal Eliahu Inbal Eliahu Inbal is an Israeli conductor.Inbal studied violin at the Israeli Academy of Music and took composition lessons with Paul Ben-Haim... |
Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt | Cooke II |
| 1993 | Mark Wigglesworth Mark Wigglesworth Mark Wigglesworth is a British conductor. Wigglesworth has served as associate conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, as musical director of the Opera Factory of London, and music director of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales... |
BBC National Orchestra of Wales BBC National Orchestra of Wales The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is a Welsh symphony orchestra and one of the BBC's five professional orchestras. The BBC NOW is the only professional symphony orchestra organisation in Wales, occupying a dual role as both a broadcasting orchestra and national orchestra.The BBC NOW has its... |
Cooke III |
| 1994 | Leonard Slatkin Leonard Slatkin Leonard Edward Slatkin is an American conductor and composer.-Early life and education:Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His father Felix Slatkin was the violinist, conductor and founder of the Hollywood String Quartet,... |
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra based in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1880 by Joseph Otten as the St. Louis Choral Society, the SLSO is the second-oldest symphony orchestra in the United States as it is preceded by the New York Philharmonic.-History:The St... |
Mazzetti I |
| 1994 | Harold Farberman Harold Farberman Harold Farberman is an American conductor, composer, and percussionist.-Biography:Farberman studied percussion at Juilliard and composition at the New England Conservatory and at Tanglewood with Aaron Copland... |
Philharmonia Hungarica Philharmonia Hungarica The Philharmonia Hungarica was a symphony orchestra, based in Germany, which existed from 1956 to 2001.It was first established in Baden bei Wien near Vienna by Hungarian musicians who had fled their homeland after it was invaded by Soviet troops... |
Carpenter |
| 1997 | Robert Olson Robert Olson Robert "Rob" S. Olson is a Republican member of the Kansas Senate, representing the 23rd district. He was previously a Representative in the Kansas House of Representatives, representing the 26th district from 2005 to 2010, having served as the Majority Whip... |
Colorado MahlerFest Colorado MahlerFest Colorado MahlerFest is an annual event held in Boulder, Colorado, which each year celebrates one major symphonic work by Austrian composer Gustav Mahler... Orchestra |
Wheeler IV |
| 1999 | Simon Rattle Simon Rattle Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic .... |
Berliner Philharmoniker | Cooke III |
| 2000 | Jesús López-Cobos Jesús López-Cobos Jesús López-Cobos is a Spanish conductor.López-Cobos was born in Toro, Zamora, Castile-León, Spain. He studied at Complutense University of Madrid and graduated with a degree in philosophy... |
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra As the fifth oldest orchestra in the United States, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has a legacy of fine music making as reflected in its performances in historic Music Hall, recordings, and international tours... |
Mazzetti II |
| 2000 | Robert Olson Robert Olson Robert "Rob" S. Olson is a Republican member of the Kansas Senate, representing the 23rd district. He was previously a Representative in the Kansas House of Representatives, representing the 26th district from 2005 to 2010, having served as the Majority Whip... |
Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Katowice | Wheeler IV |
| 2001 | Andrew Litton Andrew Litton Andrew Litton is an American orchestral conductor. Litton is a graduate of The Fieldston School, and holds both undergraduate and Masters degrees in music from Juilliard.... |
Dallas Symphony Orchestra Dallas Symphony Orchestra The Dallas Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra. It performs its concerts in the Meyerson Symphony Center in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, United States.... |
Carpenter |
| 2001 | Rudolf Barshai Rudolf Barshai Rudolf Borisovich Barshai was a Soviet/Russian conductor and violist.Barshai was born in Stanitsa Lobinskaya, Krasnodar Krai, and studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Lev Tseitlin and Vadim Borisovsky. He performed as a soloist as well as together with Sviatoslav Richter, David Oistrakh, and... |
Junge Deutsche Philharmonie | Barshai |
| 2005 | Michael Gielen Michael Gielen -Professional career:Gielen was born in Dresden, Germany, to opera director Josef Gielen. Through his mother, Rose, he is the nephew of Eduard Steuermann and Salka Steuermann Viertel. He began his career as a pianist in Buenos Aires, where he studied with Erwin Leuchter and gave an early... |
South-West German Radio-Symphony Orchestra, Baden-Baden | Cooke III |
| 2007 | Gianandrea Noseda Gianandrea Noseda Gianandrea Noseda is an Italian conductor. He studied piano, composition and conducting in Milan. He furthered his conducting studies with Donato Renzetti, Myung-Whun Chung and Valery Gergiev.... |
BBC Philharmonic BBC Philharmonic The BBC Philharmonic is a British broadcasting symphony orchestra based at Media City UK, Salford, England. It is one of five radio orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The orchestra's primary concert venue is the Bridgewater Hall.... |
Cooke III |
| 2008 | Daniel Harding Daniel Harding Daniel Harding is a British conductor.Harding studied trumpet at Chetham's School of Music and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra at age 13. At age 17, Harding assembled a group of musicians to perform Pierrot Lunaire of Arnold Schoenberg, and sent a tape of the performance to Simon... |
Vienna Philharmonic | Cooke III |
| 2008 | Martin Sieghart | Arnhem Philharmonic | Samale/Mazzuca |
| 2010 | David Zinman David Zinman David Zinman is an American conductor and violinist.After early violin studies at the Oberlin Conservatory, Zinman studied theory and composition at the University of Minnesota and took up conducting at Tanglewood... |
Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra | Carpenter II |
| 2010 | Yoel Gamzou | International Mahler Orchestra | Gamzou 2010 World Premiere |
External links
- Deryck Cooke's original 1960 radio broadcast on 'Mahler's Unfinished Tenth Symphony'
- Discography of the Tenth Symphony including incomplete versions, with commentary.