Mahler: Symphony No. 10. Sir Simon Rattle, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. EMI 7243 5 56972 2 6.(Review)

Mahler: Symphony No. 10. Sir Simon Rattle, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. EMI 7243 5 56972 2 6.

Controversy continues to swirl around Mahler's final, uncompleted symphony, largely because of the ethics of trying to guess what the composer might have done had he lived long enough to finish it. Mahler did most of the score for his Tenth Symphony during the summer of 1910, leaving a complete skeleton of the piece before he died in 1911. He himself spoke of it as "a work fully prepared in the sketch." But a sketch is not a fully realized composition, and he would inevitably have done a great deal of revision before its premiere. The performing edition of Mahler's draft used by Sir Simon Rattle on this disc was prepared by Deryck Cooke in collaboration with Berthold Goldschmidt, Colin Matthews, and David Matthews.

As presented here, the Tenth is a direct kin of the Ninth. It begins in the same slow, eloquent, and mystic way of the Ninth, then bursts into quintessential Mahler strife, its energy spent dying off into a long, pensive close. The second and fourth movements are typically bizarre Mahler Scherzos, sounding vaguely familiar yet distant. The brief, middle movement is reminiscent of the Fourth Symphony, and the Finale, starting with some mysterious drum strokes moves into a languorous melody, concluding with a great murmur of relief. The whole thing can seem at first glance like a distillation of all of Mahler's past symphonic heartaches, and ...