What should be done with the magnificent torso that is Mahler’s Tenth? Thanks to the efforts of a devoted band of pioneers, not least Sir Simon Rattle, Deryck Cooke’s relatively discreet ‘performing version’ is familiar to many. Nevertheless, there must always be room for alternative editions – if only to remind us that this is not echt Mahler, for all that he left us a continuous thread of argument for the entire symphony as Elgar did not with his Third. No subject so divides Mahler fanatics, so expect feathers to be ruffled by the extraordinary array of rival ‘completions’ set to appear in the coming months.
This is Remo Mazzetti’s second attempt at a performable score – his first thoughts were recorded by Leonard Slatkin – and Mark II proves a radical revamp. Helped by the relatively small-scale sonority of the Cincinnati orchestra, and finely detailed if somewhat airless sound, Lopez-Cobos and Mazzetti have come up with a Tenth at once leaner and more intimate than we have heard before. Mazzetti invents or infers contrapuntal layers, something Cooke conscientiously eschewed where possible, and yet the blunderbuss quality of the Slatkin account is never in evidence. The chamber-like textures and prominently projected winds not only hark back to Das Lied von der Erde but sometimes seem predicated along the lines of Schoenbergian Klangfarbenmelodie.
It’s not all plain sailing, although apparent mistakes in the playing need not be mistakes at all given that many accidentals are transcribed differently by Mazzetti. After years of Cooke, such variants inevitably jar. There is what sounds like a howler in bar 53 of the finale (4'19). Nor is it clear why Mazzetti has jettisoned some but not all of the intrusive drum rolls with which he peppered the great Adagio. One survives in the lead up to the recapitulation at bar 141 (11'06). Disaffected ears may miss the unforced fluidity of the music-making in this movement, though there could be more in the way of muscle and character. Tempos tend to the swift.
The scherzos are certainly worth hearing in their alternative garb, especially the second, in which Mahler’s own intentions are least clear. The opening of the finale, which now leads straight in from the fourth movement as it does under Rattle (though this was a step too far for Cooke), still sounds more like Sibelius or even Tchaikovsky. Mazzetti follows Mahler’s express indication in allocating the ethereal ‘big tune’ from bar 29 (2'06) to flute, but he again gives the tail-end of it to clarinet and then oboe. He also fills out the accompaniment so that Cooke’s virginal purity is somewhat compromised, latterly by Nelson Riddle-style bass clarinet.
Despite his relatively objective approach to this intensely subjective reconstruction, Lopez-Cobos’s conducting is neither prosaic nor superficial. There may be blunt corners in the phrasing here and there, but the portamentos come across as genuinely felt rather than merely tacked on. The easier linearity of the Cooke is in part a consequence of his decision to stick with unbroken string-dominated textures in the absence of indications to the contrary. Mazzetti’s is a more intuitive colour scheme.
How to sum up? Though Rattle’s emotional authenticity remains unrivalled – his Gramo- phone Award-winning Berlin remake is the most convincing argument for a standard repertoire ‘Mahler 10’ – this is still a thought-provoking and valuable release. Lopez-Cobos conducted the score’s world premiere in Barcelona in 1999, and Telarc struck while the iron was hot: the recording was made immediately after the first American performances. Recommended