# Mahler's most performed symphony gets a critical make over.



## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Universal Edition has produced a critical edition of Gustav Mahler's fourth symphony, incorporating changes he made to galley proofs in February 1911, weeks before his fatal illness. The proofs somehow went lost until lately.

The edition also takes in marks on Mahler's own conducting score from 1905.

Renate Stark-Voit explains:





Mahler's Symphony No. 4 - New Critical Complete Edition


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## Tarneem (Jan 3, 2022)

I'm not convinced... however. If this turned out to be true then all major orchestras around the world should perform this critical complete edition


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

That’s interesting. Thanks for posting it. As to whether it “should” be the standard performing edition…I like to leave that up to conductors. Think of how many different editions there are of most Bruckner Symphonies, or Ralph Vaughn Williams revisions of his London Symphony. At any rate there will no doubt be numerous recordings of the new edition of M4


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

*Update*

It had previously issued a similarly upgraded edition of the fifth and second symphonies.

One of our readers describes the difference:

In one of the first years of this century, I was spending a few days at the Bregenzer Festspiele. For those who don't know, Bregenz is the summer home for the Wiener Symphoniker, just as the Philharmoniker goes to Salzburg. They both perform the same functions: play some concerts and mostly serve as pit bands.

On this particular trip I was invited to a Symphoniker concert which announced only Mahler's Sinfonie Nr. 5. I thought there must be something else. Surprise encores? (Actually, the one and only time I heard an encore after a Mahler symphony was a sad, sad event with Barenboim/Chicago at Carnegie Hall.)


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

Nice, but unfortunately the video is not very informative about the exact changes that were made to the standard edition.



> The edition also takes in marks on Mahler's own conducting score from 1905.


I think that's a rather dangerous approach, resulting in a mixed score and not a definitive one. The authority of the 1905 score can be questioned because Mahler was notorious for altering his scores before all his performances. His philosophy was that a score is a living thing that has to be adjusted to the circumstances of every performance. So maybe the 1905 revisions apply to some 1905 performance(s) only, who knows?

And when this woman - I'm not questioning her authority on Mahler, mind you - mentioned that she was "working on the 4th symphony and about to start working on the 1st" I thought, oh God, this is the Bruckner Cult all over again. People devoting their entire lives making every tiny difference in versions of a composer's work bigger than life and doing the composer a huge disservice instead of serving him like a faithful scholar should.

But then again, it's impossible to judge the merit of this project by a video that's just clickbait for UE and doesn't exemplify anything at all.

One last thought - one wishes Mahler didn't devote the little time he had left in 1910-1911 to these kind of revisions (of the 5th too) but instead on the completion of the 10th...


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