# Best COMPLETED score of Mahler's 10th



## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

What is the best completed version of Mahler's 10th in your opinion? I'm looking for specifically for the best score (Cooke I, Cooke II, etc.), but recording recommendations are fine too! Thanks.

Back when I used to post here more often I always complained about not liking Mahler. Well, the sixth changed me... I think I'm sipping the Mahler kool-aid now. I love the adagio from 10, 7 and Titan too.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I've heard pretty much all of them (back to the original Cooke I with Ormandy/PO) and I really prefer Mazetti II which not only eliminates some of Cooke's defects, but exists in a surprisingly good performance interpretively by Lopez-Cobos and, of all things, the Cincinnati Symphony.

The one remarkable thing they shows through time and time again while listening to all of the above, is what an almost fool-proof piece the first movement is. It survives and shines through whatever conductors and orchestras do to it.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

My preference, with Cooke III. I have not heard a perfect recording of this performing version. And Rattle BPO is one of my least favourites.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

A personal favorite of the Cooke Edition performance score:
https://www.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphony-No-10/dp/B000BJOOF2


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I've heard every version that's been recorded - and maybe it's just that Cooke got there first, but I really prefer his above all the rest. Remo Mazzetti has I believe withdrawn his accounts. If you're looking for the actual physical score, the final Cooke version is the easiest to get. The Barshai and Wheeler completions are very good. The Carpenter is atrocious. Samale/Mazzuca is pretty good too, but the only recording has a major technical flaw that is shocking for a quality label like Exton. The newest I know of, the Gamzou, is just too interventionist, too much added material and ideas that I don't like it. So - go for Cooke III. For recordings, Kurt Sanderling gets my vote with Chailly close behind. Both use Cooke II with their own retouchings.

What is remarkable is that no matter which version you listen to, they all come out sounding like Mahler. The source material is so strong that no amount of arranging and editing can hide the masters pen.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

^^What he said ... I have also compared almost all the versions (not Gamzou) and what is so striking (with perhaps the exception of Carpenter) is not how different they are but how different they aren't.

Regarding the Mazzetti, I don't know about him having withdrawn his versions but his revised version was a result of his having worked on the Wheeler completion. If I were to choose a second version to Cooke III, it would be the revised Mazzetti.

As to recordings, after being a long time devotee of the Rattle recordings, now I slightly prefer Daniel Harding and the Vienna Philharmonic (Cooke IIi).

One note about the Ormandy recording, that was made using the first Cooke version from _before_ Cooke had been given access to many of Mahler's notes as a result of which he made substantial changes to his completion.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I forgot to mention something else that I wish someone would record: there are a couple of chamber orchestra versions of the 10th, one by Michelle Castelleti and the other by Luis Carvalho. Both have been performed, but I can't find any video or audio. I would like to hear them very much. Some purists can't accept chamber versions of Mahler, but I have to admit that the chamber versions I have of symphonies 4, 9 and Das Lied are quite enjoyable. There are piano versions of almost everything, including the 10th and they're also worth a listen.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

mbhaub said:


> I've heard every version that's been recorded - and maybe it's just that Cooke got there first, but I really prefer his above all the rest. pen.


So there are multiple Cooke versions? Is this the best one:

Deryck Cooke Final Version


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I would be curious how much of the similarity among performing versions goes back to the orchestration notes/reminders Mahler scribbled in his short score (which I have not seen). The thing I most miss is Mahler's uncanny ability to change the orchestration within a passage and between repetitions of the same or similar passages. He almost never orchestrates the same passage the same way twice. Like the musical equivalent of never being able to stand in the same river twice. 

Two things that bug me about the performing versions going all the way back to Cooke I: 1) Mahler is never shrill. But there are various places in the performing versions where he is made to be -- and I don't think that would have been his choice. 2) The damn xylophone in the fourth movement. The scherzo of the Sixth notwithstanding, Mahler was not a xylophone composer.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Well, Cooke made version I. As pointed out above, it does sound shrill at times because Cooke was quite cautious about overscoring and intruding on Mahler. And the Columbia sound for Ormandy wasn't their best effort, either. Cooke then worked on version II - it's noticeable fuller in orchestration. Throughout the process, he had help with Berthold Goldschmidt, Colin and David Matthews who made a lot of suggestions on how to get the Mahler sound correct. After Cooke died, work went on. The so-called version III isn't that much different from II: there are some note corrections and other editings that aren't all that significant. That was his final version, although it is important to understand that NO conductor follows the score as written. Without exception they change things, particularly in the percussion parts. So the Levine uses the final version, but so do most recordings made since then: Harding, Rattle, Chailly, Wigglesworth and the gang. 

MarkW: Mahler didn't use xylophone a lot, but the scoring of the 4th movement is almost completely conjectural since the short score has very few instrumentation indications. That's what makes listening to different versions so much fun: how is this arranger going to do it? I think it's intrusive too, but Cooke used it from Ver I on. People who are interested really should try to get the Cooke version (it's not cheap, $125) because at the bottom each page is a cleaned up version of the short score with everything Mahler wrote and that could be deciphered. Fascinating to read along with a recording. And if you're looking for a challenge, you could use that short score and make your own performing edition!


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Larkenfield said:


> A personal favorite of the Cooke Edition performance score:
> https://www.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphony-No-10/dp/B000BJOOF2


I'm with you there. Wigglesworth made another good recording with the Melbourne SO, but that account with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales is superb. To think it was given away free as a magazine cover CD!


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Becca said:


> I have also compared almost all the versions (not Gamzou)


You're not missing much, Becca. I didn't like the Gamzou at all, for the same reason that mbhaub gave: too interventionist. Painfully so, in places.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Mahler's original 'sketches and drafts' for the 10th can found at IMSLP. After looking at the manuscript for the entire work, I have greater appreciation for what went into any performance edition by Cooke or others. Except what the composer did himself, the choices to complete an orchestration would appear to be a daunting & intimidating task: http://imslp.org


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Thanks! .


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

As clarification of what I wrote earlier regarding the Ormandy / Cooke I version...

After Alma's [Mahler] death in December 1964, her daughter Anna allowed Cooke access to the full set of manuscript sketches, many of which had not been published four decades earlier. In the light of these, Cooke made a revised performing version [Cooke II] in association with the British composers Colin and David Matthews between 1966 and 1972 [Published in 1976] ... A further revision [Cooke III], with mostly minor changes made by the three surviving collaborators, appeared in print in 1989.
--- Wikipedia


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> I'm with you there. Wigglesworth made another good recording with the Melbourne SO, but that account with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales is superb. To think it was given away free as a magazine cover CD!


The BBC is my go-to recording - and I did snag it free!


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

Thank you TalkClassical community. I will begin by buying a recording of Cooke III.


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