Three Great Unfinished Symphonies

[Brahmsian]

M10

Sarge

I was a bit shocked by your choice, Sarge. I thought for sure it would have been B9. Even though I know love Mahler's music as much and maybe a bit more than Bruckner.

I know they are both part of your famous "BMW".

[Karl Henning]

I have to go with Mahler 10 because of the opening Adagio.

[relm1]

I think M10 should be disqualified.   Why?  Because it was finished and he was working on orchestration when he died completing the first and second movement and some notes on the remaining movements.  I'm partially teasing because one could consider it incomplete because the orchestration wasn't finished but all the versions we hear don't have different music, just different instrumentation, dynamics, etc.  I never understand conductors who omit the completed work from their series (MTT, LBernstein) choosing to only have the Adagio opening movement where the symphony in full perfectly rounds off a very compelling symphonic odyssey.

[Crudblud]

The orchestration is such an important element of Mahler's aesthetic that I can see why a conductor would choose to be a purist and avoid the "performing versions" available. It's taken me a long time to accept these versions myself, but I'm partial to Barshai's version, it has more daring choices and evinces a greater ambition than the perfunctory Cooke or Wheeler, while not dabbling in material changes in the way that Carpenter does. It's just a shame that the only available recording, Barshai's own, has some serious sound issues.

Add.: Looking through the thread, I see I already posted about Barshai last year. Mahler 10 vs. Bruckner 9 remains a tough decision.

[vers la flamme]

I think M10 should be disqualified.   Why?  Because it was finished and he was working on orchestration when he died completing the first and second movement and some notes on the remaining movements.  I'm partially teasing because one could consider it incomplete because the orchestration wasn't finished but all the versions we hear don't have different music, just different instrumentation, dynamics, etc.  I never understand conductors who omit the completed work from their series (MTT, LBernstein) choosing to only have the Adagio opening movement where the symphony in full perfectly rounds off a very compelling symphonic odyssey.

Sorry, but not fully orchestrated = unfinished.

[relm1]

Sorry, but not fully orchestrated = unfinished.

You're wrong then.  Not fully orchestrated = unfinished orchestration.  Brilliant orchestrators bring hues that might not even be in the original.  Ravel/Mussorgsky's Pictures being a prime example.

[Jo498]

To my understanding the "finishedness" of Mahler 10 is in doubt not only as far as instrumentation is concerned. I don't know but the wariness of everybody asked by Alma in the first half of the 20th century who all refused the task of "completion" seems to show that the work to be done is far from "mere" orchestration. (And the wariness of most of the older "Mahlerian" conductors who refused to conduct/record Cooke's version points in the same direction.)
So either the orchestration is a major part of finishedness (therefore the comparison with doubtlessly finished piano pieces that were orchestrated later on does not apply) or there were obviously more and harder to resolve questions in the partial score that showed the unfinishedness.

[Crudblud]

"These attempts are, from my point of view, very unsatisfying. I have in my possession a facsimile of Mahler's jottings for the Tenth Symphony. Much of it is sketched out in only a very rudimentary fashion, making it impossible to draw any conclusions about the intended polyphonic textures. When compared to the complexity of the Ninth, these 'completions' seem to me rather poor."

The above is taken from an interview of Boulez conducted by Sören Ingwersen, translated from the original German by Stewart Spencer, as featured in the liner notes for Boulez's 2010 recording of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which includes the Adagio from the Tenth.

[Karl Henning]

"These attempts are, from my point of view, very unsatisfying. I have in my possession a facsimile of Mahler's jottings for the Tenth Symphony. Much of it is sketched out in only a very rudimentary fashion, making it impossible to draw any conclusions about the intended polyphonic textures. When compared to the complexity of the Ninth, these 'completions' seem to me rather poor."

The above is taken from an interview of Boulez conducted by Sören Ingwersen, translated from the original German by Stewart Spencer, as featured in the liner notes for Boulez's 2010 recording of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which includes the Adagio from the Tenth.

FWIW, I have not yet brought myself to listen to the rest of the Tenth.

[relm1]

"These attempts are, from my point of view, very unsatisfying. I have in my possession a facsimile of Mahler's jottings for the Tenth Symphony. Much of it is sketched out in only a very rudimentary fashion, making it impossible to draw any conclusions about the intended polyphonic textures. When compared to the complexity of the Ninth, these 'completions' seem to me rather poor."

The above is taken from an interview of Boulez conducted by Sören Ingwersen, translated from the original German by Stewart Spencer, as featured in the liner notes for Boulez's 2010 recording of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which includes the Adagio from the Tenth.

I went through a phase of obsession of M10 and looked through the facsimile sketches of it.  They're on imslp.  I understood what the problems were.  There were places were M would explore options so you might have two versions of one idea side by side.  Cooke would find option one more convincing but Barshai might find option two more convincing.  Similarly, as many composers do, sometimes there are passages where the material is in short hand rather than fully flushed out.  Contrapuntal passages might have this issues where a primary and secondary idea is present but it feels sort of missing something and the composer might consider this now an academic exercise to get a good third line in.  He might use block chords for instance in the sketch where he knew he would never actually use block chords, he'd make them contrapuntal.  Those issues do exist in M10.  That's probably what Boulez is referring to.  I just think these are secondary and tertiary issues that don't really change the music but add clarity to the ideas he had.  My solution would be to rather than discard the remaining movements, use his late style as a guide to judge how he would have handled these sort of issues and that is what these completions do.  Yes, there are some judgements made such as the Cooke/Barshai example but if you hear the options side by side, both work and both are Mahler.  I bet had he lived he would have vacillated between these options and probably came up with a third or fourth option adding confusion till at some point he stops doing that.  That's where we are with M10.

[André]

I've never taken to the completed tenth. I find the first and last movements impressive in their own right, but what's in between sounds rather skeletal. The material and its orchestration neither cohere nor make much of an impression. Doubts linger. Mahler was an obsessive perfectionist known to rethink and make changes to his works even after they were completed. He could even discard whole movements. While not an exercise in futility, the completions remain approximations of what could have been. Old school conductors seem to have had enough reservations to leave the enterprise aside. I wonder what Bernstein had to say on the subject ?

To each his own. I'm happy to have different versions of it, but would never consider the end product (by Barshay, Cooke, Carpenter or Gamzou) on the same level as the other symphonies.

[Brahmsian]

FWIW, I have not yet brought myself to listen to the rest of the Tenth.

Never, Karl? I've only have listened to the whole 10th a handful of times.

Same with Bruckner's 9th with a fourth movement.

[Crudblud]

I wonder what Bernstein had to say on the subject ?

He spewed some some mumbo jumbo about Mahler being unable to finish the Tenth even if he had lived longer because he had already said everything in the Ninth. This is complete nonsense, but it's the kind of mythologising a sentimental swooner like Lenny just can't resist.

My solution would be to rather than discard the remaining movements, use his late style as a guide to judge how he would have handled these sort of issues and that is what these completions do.  Yes, there are some judgements made such as the Cooke/Barshai example but if you hear the options side by side, both work and both are Mahler.

The fact that such judgements must be made at all means that the work is not finished, no? I can't see it any other way, even though I appreciate the efforts that have been made, it's still one composer's version or another and never Mahler's own, we can't ever know just how he would have done it. But I suppose, to go in for a bit of mythologising of my own, it's appropriate that a man whose first big success as a composer was in "completing" Weber's Die drei Pintos should have left behind a half-finished puzzle of his own for others to try and solve.

[Brahmsian]

The only completed B9 I have listened to is the one conducted by Rattle and BPO (Samale, Cohrs, Mazzuca and Phillips editing version).

I do enjoy it, but unfortunately can't find the disc at the moment. I may have accidentally put it in with a few other discs for second hand store donation. 

I wanted to compare that recording above with the two other completed versions I have (both performed by Gerd Schaller and the Philharmonic.) One is Schaller's own version of the completion and the other is William Carragan's version of the completion. I have not listened to either version yet.

[relm1]

I've never taken to the completed tenth. I find the first and last movements impressive in their own right, but what's in between sounds rather skeletal. The material and its orchestration neither cohere nor make much of an impression. Doubts linger. Mahler was an obsessive perfectionist known to rethink and make changes to his works even after they were completed. He could even discard whole movements. While not an exercise in futility, the completions remain approximations of what could have been. Old school conductors seem to have had enough reservations to leave the enterprise aside. I wonder what Bernstein had to say on the subject ?

To each his own. I'm happy to have different versions of it, but would never consider the end product (by Barshay, Cooke, Carpenter or Gamzou) on the same level as the other symphonies.

I have worked for "perfectionists".  Don't think that means they won't tolerate anything but perfection.  It means they second guess everything.  There is a point of diminishing returns, where corrections solve a problem and introduce a new problem that didn't exist before.  At a point, someone takes the work away from them and they no longer have that option to second guess themselves.  Mahler probably falls into that category IMO.  There is no such thing as perfectionist.  It just doesn't exist.  "I find the first and last movements impressive in their own right, but what's in between sounds rather skeletal"...the same could be argued about No. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9.  He clearly struggled with large scale structure and anyone who doubts this should check the litany of performance notes...those weren't done during composition, those were during rehearsals and performances.  He clearly imagined something not perfectly captured in score as any artist can understand.  He did the best he could which means what we have from him is always going to be a bit of an estimate of what he envisioned.  At best, we're really close.  I would argue the M10 completions are far closer to what he intended than the first movement as it is. 

[relm1]

FWIW, I have not yet brought myself to listen to the rest of the Tenth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Z0iyBNxpk

[Karl Henning]

Never, Karl? I've only have listened to the whole 10th a handful of times.

Same with Bruckner's 9th with a fourth movement.

Not yet, Ray, but shall, sometime.

[Jo498]

"I find the first and last movements impressive in their own right, but what's in between sounds rather skeletal"...the same could be argued about No. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9.  He clearly struggled with large scale structure and anyone who doubts this should check the litany of performance notes...those weren't done during composition, those were during rehearsals and performances.

No, this could not be seriously said about all symphonies but 4 and 6. It seems likely that Mahler would have made slight emendations in the 9th and "Das Lied von der Erde", had he lived longer. But to claim that there is only a slight difference in degree between the state of officially completed symphonies like 2 or 5 and the 3 or 4 incomplete movements of the 10th is very bold, to put it mildly.
Or do you mean, as seems indicated in the quoted sentences that there are huge differences in completion or "perfection" between the movements of the completed symphonies, similar to the 10th. The quoted sentence by Karl? is a bit unclear because while the first movement of the 10th is the most finished, the last is as "skeletal" as the intermediate ones (and needs as much contribution from the editor), or am I mistaken here? (I never bothered to read up more on the piece than is summarized in CD booklets.)

[relm1]

No, this could not be seriously said about all symphonies but 4 and 6. It seems likely that Mahler would have made slight emendations in the 9th and "Das Lied von der Erde", had he lived longer. But to claim that there is only a slight difference in degree between the state of officially completed symphonies like 2 or 5 and the 3 or 4 incomplete movements of the 10th is very bold, to put it mildly.
Or do you mean, as seems indicated in the quoted sentences that there are huge differences in completion or "perfection" between the movements of the completed symphonies, similar to the 10th. The quoted sentence by Karl? is a bit unclear because while the first movement of the 10th is the most finished, the last is as "skeletal" as the intermediate ones (and needs as much contribution from the editor), or am I mistaken here? (I never bothered to read up more on the piece than is summarized in CD booklets.)

With M10, let me try to explain it further.  There are three books. 
1. Sketches: the work with fragments and rough sketches.  It is not chronological.  Many ideas are incomplete, fragmented, and not flushed out.  Sometimes he has multiple ideas and hasn't flushed either out but it is clear they're variations of the same material.  He's basically jotting down ideas some of which will be flushed out in...
2. Final short score: the sketches here are worked through into a composition but instrumentation isn't flushed out, it's a short score so maybe two grand staves or so.  Some parts are more flushed out but basically it is now a composition that flows from start to end.
3. Full score and complete draft: this is basically where one should start in seeing what exists.  The full score of first and second movements and first 30 bars of third movement are orchestrated, the rest of the work have partial orchestration and this is where he left off.

The issue with M10 is that there are some places where the full score and complete draft are less complete than the short score.  So in this case what Cooke and others do is then start with full score and complete draft then go backwards to fill in the missing portions.   This basically means Mahler had roughly completed the work entirely and was flushing out the draft when he died leaving it not fully completed but the ideas where there in final score and possibly in sketches.  The sketches are obviously the sketchiest but with the complete draft being quite complete and the short score having most of the missing passages, one didn't need to rely much on the sketches but it was available as additional resource if needed. 

In the latest Cooke 3, he has his orchestration with a reduction of the completed draft and you see they are extremely close.  I believe had Mahler lived, the orchestration of movement 1, 2, and 30 bars of 3 would have evolved further.  So why aren't movements 2 and first part of 3 included in performances where conductors wanted to present only what he did?  Because playing only first movement gives a Mahlerian scope without feeling fully incomplete as it would if the next movement or two were also performed.   My argument is that enough has been completed of the composition that we know what we was going to do but it requires some puzzle work and that's what Cooke did, all the material is available for review and criticism and it is well documented.  He informs where he had two contradictory options and how he made a decision which other interpretations might not have agreed fully but these are generally few and minor and shouldn't be the reason the work isn't heard in its entirety.

I've attached an example of the final page of the symphony.  The top part is Cooke's version and the bottom is Mahler's and you see they are lined up and make sense musically, logically, and orchestrationally.  The orchestration is even implied and using the complete draft as a guide, more information can be gained on the instrumentation because he either indicates the instrument directly or it's on a stave where it becomes more clear (like bottom 5 staves are strings, if he uses the third staff, you know it's viola without needing to be told that). 

[vers la flamme]

You're wrong then.  Not fully orchestrated = unfinished orchestration.  Brilliant orchestrators bring hues that might not even be in the original.  Ravel/Mussorgsky's Pictures being a prime example.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, because I definitely think you're wrong about this. Orchestration is an integral part of the "completeness" of a work, especially in the case of Mahler. The Mussorgsky example is kind of a red herring being that Pictures was written as a solo piano work and not an orchestral suite.