Mahler's tangled Tenth

Synopsis

In 1960, the musical world was observing the centenary of the birth of composer Gustav Mahler. A British musicologist named Deryck Cooke hit upon the idea of preparing a performing edition of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10, a work left unfinished at the time of Mahler’s death in 1911. This was a daunting task for two reasons.

First, Mahler’s widow, Alma, had resisted efforts for too close an examination of Mahler’s sketches for his 10th Symphony, as these were peppered with emotionally charged comments to her in Mahler’s hand, painful reminders that her husband was working on this symphony at a time when he had just discovered she was having an affair with another man.

The second hurdle was purely musical in nature: even though Mahler had sketched out the symphony in full, he had left most of it unorchestrated. Now, Mahler was a master orchestration, and it was argued that only a similarly gifted composer could flesh out Mahler’s sketches. Schoenberg and Shostakovich were both asked to do so, and both declined.

Deryck Cooke, however, persisted, and completed his version of Mahler’s Tenth in time for some excerpts to be broadcast over BBC radio. Understandably, that broadcast spurred interest in hearing all of Cooke’s realization.

Eventually even Alma relented, dropping her opposition to the project shortly before her death. And so, on today’s date in 1964, Bertold Goldschmidt conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the first complete concert performance of Deryck Cooke’s arrangement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10.

Music Played in Today's Program

Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911) arr. Cooke Symphony No. 10 Berlin Philharmonic; Sir Simon Rattle, cond. EMI 56972

On This Day

Births

• 1879 - English composer John Ireland, in Inglewood (Bowdon), Cheshire;

Deaths

• 1912 - French opera composer Jules Massenet, age 70, in Paris;

Premieres

• 1841 - R. Schumann: "Concert Fantasy" for Piano and Orchestra, at a closed rehearsal of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Felik Mendelssohn, with Clara Schumann (8 and 1/2 months pregnant) as the soloist; This "Concert Fantasy" was revised as the first movement of Schumann's Piano Concerto in a, Op. 54, which Clara Schumann premiered in Dresden on December 4, 1845 at a concert conducted by Ferdinand Hiller;

• 1876 - First complete performance of Richard Wagner's "Ring" cycle begins at Bayreuth with a performance of "Das Rheingold" (this opera had received its premiere performance in Munich on Sept. 22, 1869);

• 1964 - Mahler: Symphony No. 10, arranged for performance by the English musicologist Deryck Cooke, is performed complete for the first time by the London Symphony conducted by Berthold Goldschmidt; With the assistance of Colin and David Matthews, Cooke revised his performing edition of Mahler's Tenth, and this revised version - known as "Cooke II" - was first performed on October 15, 1972, by the New Philharmonia under Wyn Morris;

• 1973 - Thea Musgrave: Viola Concerto at a London Proms Concert, with her husband, Peter Mark, the soloist;

• 1976 - Duke Ellington: ballet "Three Black Kings" (posthumously), at the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center in New York, by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Duke Ellington Orchestra conducted by Mercer Ellington.