Testament releases Deryck Cooke's work on Mahler symphony No 10

[Guest]

At first I couldn't believe my eyes but here it is:

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Testament/SBT31457

What a treasure trove!

[Petrushka]

I'd agree. Testament are to be congratulated on making this available. Boarders may also be interested to read a letter from Eric Shanes in the February issue of Gramophone concerning this performance.

[Bryn]

hmv.com are showing a later release date but are only asking £15.99 including p&p.

[Tapiola]

This looks very exciting indeed. But I am awaiting a re-release of Wyn Morris' Philharmonia recording, if only for that A flat minor chord.

[Bryn]

I bought the Wyn Morris (coupled with the Flipse 8) year or so ago via amazon.co.uk for around a tenner. Is is out of the catalogue again?

[Tapiola]

Last time I looked, Bryn, on Amazon, it was ridiculously expensive (c. £80). My LP is showing signs of age.

[Bryn]

I must have struck lucky, I suppose. There is no way I would consider anything like £80 for it. I still have my LPs too, but the CD is a somewhat of an improvement, due to the surface noise on my LPs. I would quite happily have done without the Flipse 8th. A quick Google shows that what looks like a fairly low data rate rip of the CD has been uploaded by someone.

[Chris Newman]

I am delighted to see that Testament are issuing these vital recordings. I hope also that they will continue to put out BBC recorded archives particularly that Medici have ceased doing so on BBC Legends.

Mant thanks, amateur 51, for the heads up.

[Tapiola]

I must have struck lucky, I suppose. There is no way I would consider anything like £80 for it. I still have my LPs too, but the CD is a somewhat of an improvement, due to the surface noise on my LPs. I would quite happily have done without the Flipse 8th. A quick Google shows that what looks like a fairly low data rate rip of the CD has been uploaded by someone.

Perhaps we all strike it lucky from time to time. I bought the Juilliard SQ Schoenberg (plus Berg and Webern) United Artists set last year just before the company went bust. Third Party Amazon sellers are looking for just less than £300 for this now! Absolute thieves. I would not sell it though. I do like the pure black playing sides.

[Roehre]

At first I couldn't believe my eyes but here it is:

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Testament/SBT31457

What a treasure trove!

As it had escaped my attention so far: thank you very much

[Steerpike]

Just a warning note before you get too excited. I was at the Proms premiere and, IMHO, it was a dutiful to the point of dull performance. Even the parts of the symphony we already knew were ok, no more. Again, IMHO, later recordings have put it in the shade.
As you’d expect from a young Mahlerite, I was very put out at this and remonstrated with a mentor who was close to the top of things in Beeb music. He absolutely agreed about the performance, said that it was just as he (and others) had expected but that Cooke had insisted on Goldschmidt and that in this case, it was like the composer insisting on a performer – you couldn’t really say no. Goldschmidt was obviously a musician of great talent but not, it seemed to me, on this occasion as a conductor of a score unfamiliar to the orchestra.
Of course, the Proms audience cheered it all to the echo but they would, wouldn’t they?
The talk, again working from memory, offered great insights about composing and was excellent.
I hope I’m wrong about the Prom performance but, given the validation I’ve mentioned, there were at least two of us who thought it less than worthy of the occasion.

[Tevot]

Interesting stuff. The first recording of 10 I heard was Wyn Morris' which I borrowed from Bradford Central Library. The first live performance of it was a few weeks' later at St George's Hall with the Halle under Stanislaw Skrowaczewski - this must have been perhaps late '79 early 80? The recording of it that I bought was Rattle's with the Bournemouth Symphony -to me much more engaging than his later reading with the Berliners.

Hopefully most would agree that a performing edition of 10 is a welcome addition to the canon - but out of interest which performances of it do boarders rate - and which performing edition?

BWS,

Tevot

[Uncle Monty]

A quick scout-round shows HMV offering it for £15.99 post-free. Anyone beat that?

[Bryn]

Recording:

BBCNOW, Wigglesworth or VPO, Harding

Edition:

Cooke et al 'final' revision.


That said, I welcome a variety of performing versions, and even completions such as that by Carpenter, though of such versions, as recorded, my preference would be for that by Barshai.
,

[Uncle Monty]

Hopefully most would agree that a performing edition of 10 is a welcome addition to the canon - but out of interest which performances of it do boarders rate - and which performing edition?

Hope it's not heretical on a thread about the Cooke version, but I've been enjoying Rudolf Barshai's performance of his own completion with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. (Brilliant Classics 2010, though it originally came out a few years earlier, I think). For a youth orchestra, this is really something. (And their Fifth is even better.) The completion itself is a bit maverick -- I can hear bits of other symphonies in there, and once or twice I thought of Frankenstein's monster, reassembled from fragments of other living tissue -- but whatever it is, I really like listening to it!