Mahler's tangled Tenth

Synopsis

The year 1960 marked the centenary of the birth of composer Gustav Mahler, and British musicologist 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 a close examination of his manuscript for his 10th Symphony, as it was peppered with emotionally charged comments to her in Mahler’s hand, painful reminders that her husband had just discovered she was having an affair with another man.

Secondly, although Mahler had sketched out his symphony in full, most of it was not orchestrated. Now, he was a master orchestrator, and many argued that only a similarly gifted composer could flesh out his sketches. Schoenberg and Shostakovich were both asked to do so, but both declined.

Deryck Cooke, however, persisted, and completed his version of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 in time for some excerpts to be broadcast in 1960. Even Alma was impressed, and eventually relented, and so, on today’s date in 1964, the London Symphony gave the first complete concert performance of 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, conductor; EMI 56972

On This Day

Births

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

Deaths

• 1912 - French opera composer Jules Massenet, 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, 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