Another Mahler Thread: 10th Symphony

[Bryn]

I hear Mahler actually left some crotchet-shaped toenail clippings that were found scattered "meaningfully" on a sheet of score paper. Even as I type, musicologists are turning this into the first movement of Mahler's 11th. They are undecided between 'Sehr langsam' and 'Seir feierlich'.

Gustav wept!

Don't be so very silly. Get yourself to a music library and have a gander at the score of Cooke's performing version of the sketches for the 10th. Cooke was very diligent in the way he clearly showed what was Mahler's and what was his (Cooke's) adumbration. There is much that is quite new in what Mahler got up to in his '10th'.

[Roehre]

A slight problem with that suggestion... Bruno Walter seems never to have recorded Nos. 3,6,7 or 8. So your understanding would be rather limited. (We'll let the Maestro off about the 10th).

The 10th exists; Mahler wrote it. It gives the lie even to Bernstein's remark in the wonderful "Unanswered Question", that "he [Mahler] said it all in the 9th."

The 9th is (Bernstein again) "the act of dying". The 10th is the Return to Life, finally a great Song of Love, of "What will survive of us is love" (Philip Larkin).

Mahler was probably the most autobiographical of composers: you really need to read every chapter, even if "unfinished" (though the 10th - in its actual notes - DOES tell the whole story).
Could you understand Bruckner's journey without knowing the 9th (all 4 movements!)? Or Shostakovich without 13-15? Those creative landmarks around which their inner dramas suddenly shift? THAT's the point about Mahler's 10th.

Nor can you know Beethoven without the 9th, INCLUDING THE FINALE.

(btw, i prefer Beethoven IX without the finale , as his late quartets continue the story begun with the first 3 mvts of IX )

[french frank]

Is this because it's this Thursday's Live in Concert? Petrenko with the RLPO?

[Thropplenoggin]

Don't be so very silly. Get yourself to a music library and have a gander at the score of Cooke's performing version of the sketches for the 10th. Cooke was very diligent in the way he clearly showed what was Mahler's and what was his (Cooke's) adumbration. There is much that is quite new in what Mahler got up to in his '10th'.

My above (clearly fatuous) statement regarding Mahler's toenail clippings was a bit of fun, a gentle ribbing of hardcore musicologists determined to find new works in the composer's waste paper basket.

If you had read an earlier post, you'll see I've been persuaded by this thread to investigate this work at last.

(Thropplenoggin feels justified in bequeathing himself a very Bryn at this juncture)

However, I would chortle if there was a heaven and ol' Gustav damned whoever tampered with his incomplete works. Just because he was working on it, doesn't mean he'd want it performed, just because you - the devoted fan - want to hear it. Ditto, the rescued half-finished manuscripts of authors.

[Bryn]

My above, clearly fatuous, statement was a bit of fun, a gentle ribbing of hard-core musicologists determined to find new works in the composer's waste paper basket.

If you had read an earlier post, you'll see I've been persuaded by this thread to investigate this work at last.

(Thropplenoggin feels justified in bequeathing himself a very Bryn at this juncture)

Your message was also a good hook to hang my response on.

[amateur51]

Is this because it's this Thursday's Live in Concert? Petrenko with the RLPO?

Thanks for the alert, french frank

A few years back I attended a performance of this symphony by The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain conducted by Petrenko and it was a corker so I'm greatly looking forward to this concert

And NYPO/Petrenko will be performing Beethoven symphony no 9, WITH FINALE this Summer

[jayne lee wilson]

sorry, jlw, you normally come out with a lot sense, admittedly in rather rococo prose, which i sort of like and is, i assume, the patented jlw style. However, i don't buy your overly dramatic suggestion that you can't know mahler without knowing his 10th. It's a preposterous statement. If all you know of the composer are all of his works up to and including the 9th, you'll have a pretty damn good idea of how his musical thinking progressed and where it might go next. How you can then bring in beethoven's 9th, which was performed by the composer himself in his lifetime, to shore up your thesis is just, well, daft!

"I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house down!"

[Roehre]

(.....)However, I would chortle if there was a heaven and ol' Gustav damned whoever tampered with his incomplete works. Just because he was working on it, doesn't mean he'd want it performed, just because you - the devoted fan - want to hear it. Ditto, the rescued half-finished manuscripts of authors.

If good ol'Gustav would do so, then something about a pot and a black kettle comes to mind (Weber's Drie Pintos [completed from sketches by GM, including composing own bits -like the intermezzo- to get the whole thing fitting together....], Schubert and Beethoven String quartets, Beethoven 9th finale, re-orchestrations of Beethoven, Schumann and Bach, to mention just a couple...)

[Petrushka]

If good ol'Gustav would do so, then something about a pot and a black kettle comes to mind (Weber's Drie Pintos [completed from sketches by GM, including composing own bits -like the intermezzo- to get the whole thing fitting together....], Schubert and Beethoven String quartets, Beethoven 9th finale, re-orchestrations of Beethoven, Schumann and Bach, to mention just a couple...)

Mahler was, if anything, the most pragmatic of composers, endlessly tinkering with his works and fully realising that future musicians would bring their own onterpretations to his music. I don't think Gustav would have wept to see his 10th completed by unknown hands. He would have rejoiced!

[Howdenite]

Just finished listening to both Rattle recordings. I would note that, as said above, Mahler would have heavily revised DVLE and the 9th if he'd had the chance to hear them. But mostly, though I don't have the vocabulary to discuss the music, I simply would not want to spend my life without this symphony. Will be making the trip from one end (almost) of the M62 to the other for the Saturday concert in Liverpool. I've only been there once before for RLPO + Petrenko for Mahler's 6th, which I found to be simply stunning. I'm excited and pleased that Petrenko is a conductor who will perform Mahler's 10th and I feel so lucky to be able to hear it.

[richardfinegold]

A very nice summary, Richard.
The work is quite pleasing to listen to and I think that Deryck Cooke did a fine job in expanding upon Mahler's sketches,, but as far as I am concerned, that does not alter the incontravertible fact that Mahler did not write ten symphonies! - unless you consider as I do that "Das Lied" is as much a symphony as his other nine.

JLW: If you want to understand Mahler's symphonies, listen to them conducted by Dr Bruno Walter, his friend and champion.

Enjoy Deryck Cooke's suggestions for what they are - inspired speculation.

HS

I would also add that the failure of some of our most eminent Mahler conductors, such as Bernstein, Haitink, and Abbado-all of whom recorded multiple Mahler cycles--to record this work suggests that there is a general ambivalence as to it's status.
None of these remarks are intended as a criticism of Cooke or the piece, which I have really come to admire in the last couple of years.
As for JLW, I think it may be more correct to say that the piece reveals yet another side to this always fascinating composer.

[richardfinegold]

Just finished listening to both Rattle recordings. I would note that, as said above, Mahler would have heavily revised DVLE and the 9th if he'd had the chance to hear them. But mostly, though I don't have the vocabulary to discuss the music, I simply would not want to spend my life without this symphony. Will be making the trip from one end (almost) of the M62 to the other for the Saturday concert in Liverpool. I've only been there once before for RLPO + Petrenko for Mahler's 6th, which I found to be simply stunning. I'm excited and pleased that Petrenko is a conductor who will perform Mahler's 10th and I feel so lucky to be able to hear it.

Enjoy, and report back!

[amateur51]

If good ol'Gustav would do so, then something about a pot and a black kettle comes to mind (Weber's Drie Pintos [completed from sketches by GM, including composing own bits -like the intermezzo- to get the whole thing fitting together....], Schubert and Beethoven String quartets, Beethoven 9th finale, re-orchestrations of Beethoven, Schumann and Bach, to mention just a couple...)

Nicely done, Roehre

[amateur51]

Just finished listening to both Rattle recordings. I would note that, as said above, Mahler would have heavily revised DVLE and the 9th if he'd had the chance to hear them. But mostly, though I don't have the vocabulary to discuss the music, I simply would not want to spend my life without this symphony. Will be making the trip from one end (almost) of the M62 to the other for the Saturday concert in Liverpool. I've only been there once before for RLPO + Petrenko for Mahler's 6th, which I found to be simply stunning. I'm excited and pleased that Petrenko is a conductor who will perform Mahler's 10th and I feel so lucky to be able to hear it.

I hope that the concert is a great success Howdenite It would be nice to get a report if you have the time

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I would also add that the failure of some of our most eminent Mahler conductors, such as Bernstein, Haitink, and Abbado-all of whom recorded multiple Mahler cycles--to record this work suggests that there is a general ambivalence as to it's status.

"Most eminent" = "oldest"? The "failure", of course is entirely theirs*, in allowing the Draft score to be accessible only to literate Musical scholars, they perform a gross disservice to the general public and to the composer whom they revere (and whose last wishes on the subject was that the work should be made available to the public).

It's also a curious stance for these conductors to take - they've all performed and recorded the work commonly known as "Mozart's Requiem", which contains far less Mozart than the Cooke performing version of the Tenth contains genuine Mahler.

* = Which isn't meant to sound as snide as it looks. I find their difficulties entirely understandable: I have the same problem with the completions of the Finale of the Bruckner Ninth - I've lived thirty-odd years with the three-movement "torso" of the work that this has "become" the work for me: the "failure" here is entirely my own. The emotional exhaustion after the Third Movement makes any further Music intrusive and unbearable, and I envy those coming new to the work who get to know it from the version Rattle recorded. And I keep trying, hoping that the psychological block preventing my hearing this Finale will one day evaporate.