From: dbarker@spang.Camosun.BC.CA (Deryk Barker)
Subject: Re: Mahler #10 & Cooke
Organization: Camosun College, Victoria BC, Canada
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 00:48:37 GMT

In article <BuFLwt.CKK@news.udel.edu> conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad) writes:
>In article <11SEP199212134460@portal.lasc.lockheed.com> le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel (x2025)) writes:
>
>>In article <CB.92Sep11094630@tamarack13.timbuk>, cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster) writes...
> 
>>>I haven't heard Rattle's version of Mahler 10 but was interested that he
>>>did some further revisions on Cooke's version.  
>
>Mostly small.  The majority have to do with handling of percussion,
>which has to be entirely conjectural as the short score tends not to
>indicate drums etc.  I believe Rattle drops some xylophone doubles, and
>tends to use less of the drums.  How much of a percussion presence is
>"appropriate" tends to be a very personal matter of taste that varies a
>lot between people.  In general, one would probably not notice most of
>Rattle's few changes unless one was an eagle-eyed score-follower.
>
>The biggest change Rattle makes is to merge the bass drum note at the
>end of the fourth movement with the one that begins the fifth -- i.e.,
>we only hear it once.  In the latest edition of the score (1989), one of
>the co-editors mentions this in the additional notes, with approval; he
>conjectures that Mahler might well have joined the movements this way
>had he seen the score through performance and publication.  (But in the
>printed score, they rightly stick to Mahler's notes.)

From Rattle's original liner notes: 'Over the course of twenty yeras
he (berthold Goldschmidt) had become convinced of the necessity of
still further additions to the score, which he discussed at great
length with Sanderling and myself. The most noticeable of these is the
addition of percussion to the central climax oof the finale, a moment
unequalled in its hysterical power. It is this reversion to the
material of the first movement which finall silences the nightmarish
visions of the finale, and we felt that extra weight was necessary.
For the instrumental distribution, I have adapted a parallel moment in
the 2nd symphony finale, using side-drums, tam-tam, bass-drum and
timpani. Similarly, we have restored the cymbal clash at the end of
the 2nd movement (following the scherzo of the 5th sympphony), from
Cooke's original orchestration. Somehow I found the xylophone
peculiarly suggestive of Hindemith, and so I have omitted it for this
recording. Cooke's slitherith "oastiche-counterpoint" (as he termied
it) at bar 162 in the 1st novement, originally for bassoon, sounds
more authentic and more bitter on the bass clarinet. These are just a
few of the many minor but telling refinements which Goldschmidt has
suggested.

'In matters of actual notes, there are scarcely any alterations -
Mahler's manusscript is generally clear enough to silence arguments of
this nature. However, in bars 166-9 of the 4th movement, I prefer the
reading of F natural in the cello line to Cooke's F sharp; and, in the
last movement, intuition alone tells me that the 2dn violins in bar
358 should play a typically Mahlerian downward scale, rather than the
strange progression in the manuscript. Indeed there are many such
errors of writing caused by the feverish speed of composition. Finally
I am sure that the great guillotine blow before the finale should link
the two movements - a repetition weakens this harrowing effect.'

The only thing I think I would differ from Rattle on is the xylophone.
Rather than Hindemith it has always sounded to me reminiscent of the
scherzo of the 6th symphony.

Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept., Camosun College, Victoria B.C.
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical