Gustav MAHLER (1860 - 1911)
Symphony No.10 in F sharp major
(Revised performing version by Deryck Cooke with further revisions
by Kurt Sanderling)
Berlin Sinfonie-Orchester/Kurt
Sanderling
rec Berlin 1979
BERLIN CLASSICS 0094422BC
[73.46]
AmazonUK
£7.99 AmazonUS
Amazon
recommendations
Kurt Sanderling was one of the first conductors to take up the second Deryck
Cooke performing version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony after Wyn Morris gave
the first performance in 1976. In fact I think he was the most distinguished
conductor to adopt a performing version of the Tenth at all. He made his
recording in the old East Berlin in 1979 following a year's work on it. For
many years it was hard to find, but now Edel have answered the prayers of
Mahlerites and remastered it for this new issue on Berlin Classics.
Sanderling famously makes some changes of his own to Cooke's revised score
and it can be argued that, with the original material itself in such an
"unfinished" state, conductors should be allowed some licence in this matter.
Whether you agree with the changes that result is another matter. For myself
I find Sanderling's changes fascinating and, in most cases, very apt. They
tend to be in matters of shading and dynamics: some slight fillings-out of
string lines here, a little extra percussion there. Nothing too drastic but,
if you know Cooke's score well, you will notice them. However, an anomaly
emerges here. Eberhardt Klemm's fine notes to this release draw our attention
to a decision by Sanderling to leave out the first bass drum stroke in the
fifth movement and by so doing make the fourth movement, which also ends
with a drum stroke, seem to run into the fifth naturally. The only problem
is that when you finally come to play the recording you will hear that the
opening bass drum stroke in the last movement is included, just as it is
in Cooke's published score. Simon Rattle in all his performances and recordings
also leaves out the first fifth movement drum stroke and is on record as
admiring Sanderling's recording, making some of his changes to the score
Sanderling did. However, Rattle could not have learned that change from this
recording. He may have heard it from Sanderling himself, or from Berthold
Goldschmidt. This is also the place to mention that there appears to be a
problem with the master tape's transfer just after that opening drum stroke
in the fifth movement. The climbing bass tuba clearly undergoes a momentary
wobble at 0'.5" as if the tape is snagged, but then recovers. I have checked
the same moment on a 1998 Japanese Deutsche Schallplatten version and the
pitch there is perfect. So this is something that has crept into this issue
only. It's a tiny blemish, but it's a blemish nevertheless.
In the first movement listen to the expressive quality of the string playing
and what appears a well nigh perfect judgement of tempi by Sanderling. The
main Adagio contrasting beautifully with that of the opening Andante, for
example. I also admire the way Sanderling brings a real emotional peak into
what is very nearly a repeat of the Exposition material. In the Development
Sanderling is then acutely aware of Mahler's late style with its chamber-like
textures and brings with it an undeniable "grieving" quality that is most
affecting whilst never compromising the tensile strength of the music's deep
structures. The movement's central climax seems embedded into that deep structure
whilst it projects outwards and clear from it with every fragment carefully
attended to as crucially part of what is around and beneath it. Then in the
coda Sanderling maintains a sharpness of vision that too slow and languid
a performance of this movement can take us back to the days when this movement
was performed alone and needed to be played slower.
In the second movement Mahler takes the ideas of the shifting, changing metres
that we encountered in the Sixth Symphony's Scherzo to a further level and
I think Sanderling sets an admirable "framework" to encompass this. His approach
also brings reminders of the Ninth Symphony's Scherzo. He shows himself the
master of all its demands and encourages his orchestra to playing of great
character and style. The change of mood that comes in the Trio sections sees
some of the slight re-touchings made to the orchestration by Sanderling and,
to me, these sound discreet and natural. More importantly in this movement
Sanderling conveys a genuine world-weariness. This might not have been what
Mahler had in mind but it's impressive for all that. This is also a good
movement in which to admire the natural analogue recording that presents
few problems whilst not being the equal of Simon Rattle's on EMI (5569722),
for example.
Sanderling's account of the short Purgatorio fourth movement shows that he
fully realises the importance of this tiny piece in the scheme of things.
Then in the fourth movement's Scherzo II the key to what Sanderling seems
to be doing is to home in on the juxtaposition of "Danse Macabre" and "Merry
Waltz". Here, as ever, Mahler treats his material like the shuffling of a
pack of cards and Sanderling is clearly aware of that in the way the kaleidoscope
this movement is seems to go past us. As in the second movement, Sanderling's
own slight adjustments sound admirably right again and in the winding down
towards the drum strokes he is good at the creepy end of the music, the muted
brass especially memorable.
As with other recordings of this work, I found Sanderling's drum strokes
at the start of the last movement too penetrating for what they are meant
to depict. Although, like so much else about this work if we choose to hear
it in this form, I suspect this is a question that will never be resolved.
But Sanderling is unquestionably trying to convey desolation and despair
and succeeds in this. This means that the noble adagio music that climbs
out from this pit of despair, led by the solo flute, is more moving and consoling
than ever. I was reminded of the arrival of the "Shepherd's Thanksgiving"
after the storm in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. The quicker conflict material
in the centre of the movement, where the work finds some resolution, can
catch out the best orchestras, but these Berlin players have clearly been
well prepared. Sanderling also adds some extra percussion at the return of
the first movement's central climax. You can argue that the whole point of
such a return of this crisis material is that it should sound the same as
before. That the map of the work's psychology demands the horrible realisation
here that, in spite of what we might like to think, we are where we started.
On the other hand, Mahler seldom, if ever, repeats himself and might have
added extra weight to the sound here had he lived. Again this is question
that will go on perplexing us and Sanderling makes a valid point. There is,
as we have seen, so much to the Tenth that is a clutch of "might have beens"
so there can be some freedom allowed for. On the whole, however, I do prefer
the passage without extra percussion but make up your own minds when you
hear it like this. Rattle followed Sanderling in adding the percussion but
Sanderling appears to add even more, in fact he makes more of a feature of
it. There is even the hint of the scaffold from Berlioz's Symphonie
Fantastique from Sanderling. In the closing pages there is sweetness
and serenity but depth of feeling too and a rare life-affirming quality:
elegy turns into deliverance which is surely the right attitude to take away
and always with that underlying toughness - the bone beneath the skin.
This is a performance that holds its concentration from beginning to end.
Sanderling is a direct and highly intelligent Mahlerian who stresses the
cerebral over the emotional and that approach suits this score well. His
tempi are quicker than they are under some other conductors - Rattle and
Morris, for example. The feeling of pressing ahead is always there but never
gets in the way and always brings out the spiky, uneven quality of the textures
which are sparer in Cooke's version than they are in, for example, Clinton
Carpenter's. Sanderling seems to see the work in terms of a looking forward
rather than a looking back and so must have found in Cooke's score the right
vessel for his ideas. This is Mahler on the verge of new paths rather than
looking back on old ones, so is a case of editor and conductor seeming to
suit one another down to the ground.
The sound recording is vivid and lively. It's quite a close-in balance with
plenty of the inner detail for the playing of the Berlin orchestra that shows
plenty of evidence they have been well prepared. It's performances like this
that justify the whole enterprise of Deryck Cooke and all the others who
have toiled in the field of Tenth Symphony performing editions.
Sanderling's justly famous recording of the Cooke version of the Tenth Symphony
is widely available at last. Mahlerites should snap it up without hesitation.
Tony Duggan
Visit Tony Duggan's complete survey
of Mahler recordings
