Newly released Mahler works worth a listen

CD Reviews

June 28, 2011

A trio of recordings commemorate Gustav Mahler, who died 100 years ago last…

The following CD releases are among the many recordings and performances of works by Gustav Mahler presented this year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his death, on May 18, 1911. MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO. 10: Versions by Deryck Cooke

Lecture and first performances of the incomplete (1960) and complete (1964) versions

Deryck Cooke, speaker

Philharmonia and London Symphony orchestras, Berthold Goldschmidt, conductor

(Testament)

Gustav Mahler’s Tenth Symphony will probably be forever linked with the British musicologist Deryck Cooke, and this invaluable 3-CD set of recordings from the BBC makes his efforts on behalf of this contested piece clear as never before. Left incomplete at the composer’s death, the Tenth was for years known only by its first and third movements; the rest of the piece existed in a set of manuscripts supposedly too haphazard to make sense of. Cooke, though, made a thorough study and found the outlines of a five-movement symphony, written out in variable levels of detail.

Mahler’s widow, Alma, granted Cooke permission to arrange for a broadcast of his version of the Tenth in December 1960, as well as for a half-hour talk preceding the performance. Both are made available for the first time in this set. In the talk, Cooke lays out the state of Mahler’s manuscript, what had to be done in order to create his edition of the piece, and how he made his decisions. The resulting performance may not be the last word in polish and execution, but any blemishes are outweighed by the sense of history being made.

At this point, Cooke’s version had gaps in it, because of the fragmentary nature of some of the manuscripts. Further pages emerged over the next few years, and Cooke was now able to make a complete version of the Tenth, premiered at a 1964 Proms concert and here included on the third CD. The resulting performance is freer and more confident than the earlier one, a result not only of the new material but growing familiarity with the score. Others have since studied the Tenth’s remnants and made different versions. But as this set makes abundantly clear, all Mahlerians owe Cooke a deep and continuing debt.

DAVID WEININGER

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO. 2

William Steinberg; Stefania Woytowicz, soprano; Anny Delorie, contralto; Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

(ICA Classics)

William Steinberg was music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for just three seasons, 1969-1972, and many remember him, if at all, as a blip on the BSO radar between Erich Leinsdorf and Seiji Ozawa. He didn’t make many BSO recordings, either, but his Bruckner Sixth Symphony on RCA is a reminder of how a performance at average tempos can be anything but average.