Mahler: Symphonie Nr.10 (Fassung nach Cooke) / Berliner Philharmoniker, Simon Rattle – Tonträger neu kaufen

Neuware

77 Min.

2000

CD

120 g

Mahler: Symphony No 10 / Rattle, Berlin Philharmonic

Release Date: 06/06/2000
Label: EMI Classics Catalog #: 56972 Spars Code: DDD
Composer: Gustav Mahler
Conductor: Simon Rattle
Orchestra/Ensemble: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Number of Discs: 1
Recorded in: Stereo
Length: 1 Hours 17 Mins.
EAN: 0724355697226


Works on This Recording
1. Symphony no 10 in F sharp minor/major by Gustav Mahler
Conductor: Simon Rattle
Orchestra/Ensemble: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Period: Romantic
Written: 1910; Austria
Date of Recording: 09/1999
Venue: Live Philharmonie, Berlin, Germany
Length: 77 Minutes 26 Secs.
Notes: Arrangers: Colin Matthews; David Matthews; Deryck Cooke; Berthold Goldschmidt.


Notes and Editorial Reviews
Sir Simon Rattle previously recorded Deryck Cooke's performing version of Mahler's incomplete Tenth in June 1980. He was not the first to do so. Eugene Ormandy taped an earlier, more tentative edition of the text in the 1960s (CBS, 6/66 - nla), and it was Wyn Morris's New Philharmonia LPs (Philips, 3/74 - nla) that unlocked the emotive force of the finale by the simple expedient of taking it at a more deliberate tempo. Rattle came in third, but the passionate sensitivity of his reading helped win over a sceptical public at a time when we were much less keen to tamper with the unfinished works of dead or dying artists. These days, it's almost as if we see in their unresolved tensions some prophetic vision of the life to come; Rattle's success looks to have been replicated by Paul Daniel's (second) commercial recording of Anthony Payne's speculative Elgar 3 (Naxos, 3/99). In truth, the hysterical edge of Bournemouth's Mahler will have owed something to the discomfiture of the players in what is, in every sense, a difficult score, although this is absolutely in keeping with the manuscript's scrawled invocation to unfaithful Alma: 'Fur dich leben! fur dich sterben!' ('To live for you! To die for you!').

Over the years, Rattle has performed the work nearly 100 times, far more often than anyone else. Wooed by Berlin, he repeatedly offered them 'Mahler ed Cooke' and was repulsed. He made his Berlin conducting debut with the Sixth. But, after the announcement last June that he had won the orchestra's vote in a head-to-head with Daniel Barenboim, he celebrated with two concert performances of the Tenth. It's a composite version that is presented here. Had the musicians ever played movements two to five? I doubt it, and it seldom matters: they have been rehearsed to within an inch of their lives even if the exhaustingly high writing for the trumpets is not quite without flaw and the brass can obtrude more cussedly than intended. As always, Rattle obtains some devastatingly quiet string playing, and technical standards are unprecedentedly high in so far as the revised performing version is concerned. Indeed, the danger that clinical precision will result in expressive coolness is not immediately dispelled by the self-confident meatiness of the violas at the start. We are not used to hearing the line immaculately tuned with every accent clearly defined. The tempo is broader than before and, despite Rattle's characteristic determination to articulate every detail, the mood is, at first, comparatively serene, even Olympian. Could Rattle be succumbing to the Karajan effect? But no - somehow he squares the circle. The neurotic trills, jabbing dissonances and tortuous counterpoint are relished as never before, within the context of a schizoid Adagio in which the Brucknerian string writing is never undersold.

The conductor has not radically changed his approach to the rest of the work. As you might expect, the scherzos have greater security and verve. Their strange hallucinatory choppiness is better served, although parts of the fourth movement remain perplexing despite the superb crispness and clarity of inner parts. Rattle allows himself some satiric palm-court stylization hereabouts, also pointing the parallels with the 'Trinklied' from Das Lied. More than ever, everything leads inexorably to the cathartic finale, brought off with a searing intensity that has you forgetting the relative baldness of the invention. The Berlin flautist floats his tone even more poignantly in the principal theme (from bar 29, 2'14'), while an older, wiser, albeit more self-conscious maestro, painstakingly avoids sentimentality and gets a real ppp for the entry of the strings - breathtaking stuff. Several conductors (Mark Wigglesworth is one) now impose a long glissando on the upward thrust of the heart-wrenching sigh that concludes the work; Rattle has no truck with this.

But then the Tenth is a work in progress in which the conductor has every right to innovate. With Berthold Goldschmidt's encouragement, some of Rattle's departures were signalled last time. In the first movement, he reallocates Cooke's bassoon line to a Nelson Riddle-ish bass clarinet (from bar 162, 14'37') ; he enlivens the denouement of the first Scherzo with a cymbal clash (this revision got into the 1989 edition of the printed score), and he cuts out a drum stroke to pass seamlessly from the fourth to the fifth movement. In the finale, he still disagrees with Cooke, opting to reinforce the return of the Adagio's dissonant 'break-down' chords. At least the more obstreperous percussion has gone, leaving the low rumble of drums to underpin rather than obscure the harmony. There are other gains. The subtlety of the orchestral response allows more scope for special effects. Sample the gloriously scored, spaced-out cadence that concludes the Adagio. Or the achingly beautiful treatment of the episode marked A tempo aber sehr ruhig in the second scherzo (from bar 291, 5'32'). The woodwind playing in the Purgatorio is of a similarly exalted standard.

I had qualms about the recording quality, given that Rattle's live Viennese Ninth (EMI, 8/98) is by no means an easy listen. Nor is Berlin's fabulous Philharmonie the easiest venue: with everything miked close, climaxes can turn oppressive. In fact, the results here are very credible and offer no grounds for hesitation. What of the alternatives? Leonard Slatkin's CD, the first generally available commercial recording of Mahler's Tenth Symphony to use an edition other than Deryck Cooke's, is uncompetitive for that very reason, although, like Riccardo Chailly's, it represents a genuine attempt to engage with what Tony Benn would call the 'ishoos'. Chailly's own, eminently lucid account, deploying a sympathetic orchestral layout in the lustrous acoustic of the Jesus-Christus-Kirche, has perhaps been underrated. That said, comparisons are pretty much beside the point when Rattle's new version sweeps the board even more convincingly than the old. According to press reports of the first night, the conductor was called back and accorded two Karajan-style standing ovations after the orchestra had left the stage. There is no applause here, but it is not difficult to imagine such a scene. Rattle makes the strongest possible case for an astonishing piece of revivification that only the most die-hard purists will resist. Strongly recommended.

-- David Gutman, Gramophone [5/2000]

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Peter Ruark

July 18, 2016

Nobody knows how exactly the arms of the Venus de Milo were positioned, or even whether they were finished at all. We just enjoy the statue as it is and depend upon educated speculation to give us an incomplete idea of what it once was, or could have been. In the same way, many believe that the unfinished 2nd-5th movements of Mahler's Tenth are best left unfinished, and that the 1st movement, much as the armless Venus, stands by itself as a complete work of art. While it is true that for decades many recordings presented only the finished 1st movement as a self-contained tone poem, musicologist Deryck Cooke used the melody lines Mahler left for the four remaining movements and what is known about Mahler's compositional processes to undertake an educated speculation as to what the completed Tenth Symphony MIGHT have sounded like. This had been attempted by others before and since (i.e. Remo Mazzetti), but a casual literature review shows that Cooke's edition is considered most likely closest to the composer's intentions. Simon Rattle was the first to record it, in 1980.

There are of course problems with basing the completion on just the melody line sketches Mahler left, most notably that Mahler was known for changing his melodies midstream, in the process of adding the rest of the orchestration. Realistically, we will never know if this is how Mahler WOULD HAVE finished the piece (and that is where the Venus comparisons end--to my knowledge nobody has asserted that the sculptor died during the process leaving an unfinished work). Given the drawbacks, however, if one considers this a Mahler/Cooke composition rather than a Mahler-proper piece, it is quite rewarding to listen to. (There are moments when listening to this when I think "this does not sound like Mahler!" and then remind myself that, indeed, it is not only Mahler.)

This is Rattle's second recording of the Cooke edition of the Tenth. His groundbreaking first recording was made with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in 1980 and brought him to worldwide acclaim and respect. Rattle made this recording with the Berlin Philharmonic after 20 years of performing the piece, at which time he felt he better understood it. Given that few other conductors have recorded it, some find listening to the 1980 and 2000 recordings side-by-side to be fascinating and revealing. For a definitive recording in one's collection, however, it makes sense to trust Rattle's "evolutions" and go with the more recent. Enjoy, with all the caveats!

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Mit der Saison 2002 / 2003 wird SIR SIMON RATTLE Claudio Abbado als Chef der Berliner Philharmoniker ablösen. Welche Qualitäten der englische Dirigent mitbringt, um das Spitzenorchester zu übernnehmen, hat er bereits bei vielen Konzerten und mit herausragenden Aufnahmen bewiesen.
So auch im September 1999, als er in Berlin Aufführungen der zehnten Sinfonie von GUSTAV MAHLER dirigierte.
Das herausragende Konzertereignis, das von der Presse bejubelt wurde, erscheint nun als Live-Mitschnitt.

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Rezensionen

Stereo 7 / 00: "Berlins Philharmoniker stemmen sich mit flammender Intensität in Mahlers gebrochene Welt und geben Cooks nachempfundener Version Glaubwürdigkeit." B. G. Cohrs in KLASSIK heute 10 / 00: "Simon Rattle setzt sich seit Jahren für diese Aufführungsfassung von Mahlers Zehnter ein. Der hier vorgelegte Live-Mitschnitt von den Berliner Festwochen 1999 setzt neue Maßstäbe und ist nach der Interpretation von Wyn Morris (Phillips LP, 1976 - leider bis heute nicht auf CD) die überzeugendste."

EMI 56972