Mahler 10 painted in (black and) White...

[ahinton]

https://www.dailyclassicalmusic.com/2010/02/mahler-symphony-no-10-transcribed-for-piano-info.htm

Any comments, anyone?

I've long been aware of the opening movement transcription but have only just discovered the existence of the remainder and its recording.

I've not heard it yet, but the overall duration seems rather alarmingly brief, for starters...

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

That link appears to require a user name and password.

Thal

[ahinton]

That link appears to require a user name and password.

Yes, sorry - that does indeed appear to have been the case for just over a month - so please visit (if you will) https://www.dailyclassicalmusic.com/ and sign up.

Best,

Alistair

[ramseytheii]

So this is a transcription of Cooke's reconstruction?  Or is it from the manuscripts.

Walter Ramsey

[ahinton]

So this is a transcription of Cooke's reconstruction?  Or is it from the manuscripts.

From what I understand it is the former, albeit no doubt with at least some reference to the latter.

Best,

Alistair

[iroveashe]

Yes, sorry - that does indeed appear to have been the case for just over a month - so please visit (if you will) https://www.dailyclassicalmusic.com/ and sign up.

Best,

Alistair

I tried to sign up and I can't, I must be doing something wrong, could you explain a little more?

[ahinton]

I tried to sign up and I can't, I must be doing something wrong, could you explain a little more?

I would if I could and I will if I can; it's not my site, so can you tell me what specific problems you are having in trying to register for it?

Best,

Alistair

[retrouvailles]

Can you please just copy and paste any important information here? I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to, for it would make it easier for those of us who don't want to register for that site and are interested in this.

[furtwaengler]

Try:
https://www.mvdaily.com/subscription/signup.htm

Much respect is due to Ronald Stevenson and Christopher White! Where can I get my hands on the score I wonder?

FWIW, the premier of Remo Mazzetti's first Maher 10 realization with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic under Gaetano Delogu, February 3, 1989 (which I believe originates from Mazzetti's own inhouse taping) stands in the top with the most powerful and moving concert recordings I've experienced (music wide). After a long time away, I listened to this performance through twice in the last month. I'll take it any day above any of Cooke's bare bones completions, though a mark of integrity they are.

The passionate and dedicated Teng-Leong Chew of the Chicago Mahlerites has written a good article on the performing versions of Mahler's 10th, and that can be found here:

https://www.mahlerarchives.net/archives/chewM10.pdf

It's a great read for anybody who cares about this music.

(The world didn't stop when Bach stopped short of finishing Contrapunctus XIV, or when Bruckner couldn't live to complete the finale of the 9th, or Mahler his 10th...while we can mourn their incompletion, is it not astounding what such circumstances inspire emanating from the faithful efforts of those whose labor is to put the pieces together if only to give us a glimpse! And how thankful are we, marveling at this creativity, the different pathways chosen, and possibilities realized and expanded...all stemming from last breathes never completed, the inspired conceptions of dead men whose gifts were so grand and far reaching that even the mere suggestion of a phrase produces worlds in composition of every generation after! I tell you, I love such things!)

[furtwaengler]

Can you please just copy and paste any important information here? I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to, for it would make it easier for those of us who don't want to register for that site and are interested in this.

Direct copy paste:

Mahler: Symphony No 10 transcribed for piano

dda25079

DDD
NEW RELEASE

Playing time: 67'04"
Tracks: 5
Booklet pages: 12
© 2010 Divine Art Ltd
Received: 25 February 2010
This item needs a reviewer

Listen: Scherzo: Schnelle Viertel (track 2, 0:01-0:41)

Christopher White, piano

Gustav Mahler: Symphony No 10
realised by Deryck Cooke
transcribed for piano by Ronald Stevenson (first movement) and Christopher White

1 Adagio: Andante - Adagio
2 Scherzo: Schnelle Viertel
3 Purgatorio: Allegretto moderato
4 Scherzo: Allegro pesante, nicht zu schnell
5 Finale: Langsam - Allegro moderato - Adagio

First recording

If you register, which is not a taxing process, you can also sample the recording, a bit from the 2nd movement.

[ahinton]

Try:
https://www.mvdaily.com/subscription/signup.htm

Much respect is due to Ronald Stevenson and Christopher White! Where can I get my hands on the score I wonder?

https://www.ronaldstevensonsociety.org.uk/Instrumental_Scores.asp

Best,

Alistair

[furtwaengler]

https://www.ronaldstevensonsociety.org.uk/Instrumental_Scores.asp

Best,

Alistair

Oh thank you! And at a reasonable price, too. But how might I add to it Mr. White's contributions?

[ahinton]

Oh thank you! And at a reasonable price, too. But how might I add to it Mr. White's contributions?

I have no idea at present. I tried contacting the record label but the number didn't respond. You could perhaps ask the Ronald Stevenson Society or try to establish contact with Mr White himself via Royal Academy of Music in London.

Best,

Alistair

[gep]

Much as on must admire the effort taken by the arrangers, I cannot help but wonder why?  Mahler was such an orchestral composer that any reduction, let alone piano reduction would turn the music into, indeed, black and white as opposed to the opulent colo(u)rs of the original, colo(u)rs that are essential to the musical message in Mahler. (That said, I was not so long ago at a concert which featured Das Lied von der Erde in chamber-orchestra reduction, which was rather nice. But Das Lied is the most chamber-like symphony among the lot).

All that said, I've been messing around lately with another great symphonist's unfinished 11th Symphony, namely Bruckner; more precise the various completions thereof (6 so far, by 4 completors!). Now here is a composer whose symphonies might work on a keyboard instrument, meaning the organ. Anyone know if there are (recordings of) organ transcriptions of any Bruckner Symphony?

all best,
gep

[furtwaengler]

Much as on must admire the effort taken by the arrangers, I cannot help but wonder why?  Mahler was such an orchestral composer that any reduction, let alone piano reduction would turn the music into, indeed, black and white as opposed to the opulent colo(u)rs of the original, colo(u)rs that are essential to the musical message in Mahler. (That said, I was not so long ago at a concert which featured Das Lied von der Erde in chamber-orchestra reduction, which was rather nice. But Das Lied is the most chamber-like symphony among the lot).

I like the chamber version of the 4th more than the chamber version of Das Lied. You ought to check it out. All of Mahler's orchestrations are complex chamber music, but I think you're right that his later music even more so.

The question why? Why not? There are many realizations of the tenth for orchestra readily available, but how many can you set your hands on and have under your fingers? It's a thing of accessibility for one, but also presents a unique perspective of the general structure of the piece. I would never trade a reduction or transcription for the real thing(s), but there is a thrill to hand the same chords and melodies under the fingers (Mahler's really given nothing to the piano!). There really is value in this pursuit! 

All that said, I've been messing around lately with another great symphonist's unfinished 11th Symphony, namely Bruckner; more precise the various completions thereof (6 so far, by 4 completors!). Now here is a composer whose symphonies might work on a keyboard instrument, meaning the organ. Anyone know if there are (recordings of) organ transcriptions of any Bruckner Symphony?

all best,
gep

At least the 8th Symphony has been transcribed for organ and I do have a recording, and have had it for a long time without yet listening. Your post should give me reason to find it. I've always thought the 3rd Symphony would be the best suited to an organ transcription. If one exists I hope it can make its way to our resident organist, Quantum!

(It may interest you that Mahler's 5th and 6th symphonies exist in organ transcriptions. I don't know that these are successful, but you may like knowing they're there.) 

[ahinton]

Much as on must admire the effort taken by the arrangers, I cannot help but wonder why?  Mahler was such an orchestral composer that any reduction, let alone piano reduction would turn the music into, indeed, black and white as opposed to the opulent colo(u)rs of the original, colo(u)rs that are essential to the musical message in Mahler.

I would be reluctant to ask "why" until and unless I'd heard the transcription; if it's no more than a mere "arrangement", then the only conceivable reason "why" might be in order to enable people who can play the piano to get their hands around it and get a physical feel for its harmonies, melodies, counterpoints and the rest which would nevertheless by definition fall well short of "the real thing", but if on the other hand it is a truly imaginative "transcription" per se, it would hopefully amount to a kind of translation in pianistic terms - a translation that should and hopefully does aim to replicate something of the feel of Mahler's unique orchestral treatments in terms of the piano, in the kind of way that all other great transcriptions should seek to do. Let's wait and hear!

Best,

Alistair

[furtwaengler]

So this is a transcription of Cooke's reconstruction?  Or is it from the manuscripts.

Walter Ramsey

From what I understand it is the former, albeit no doubt with at least some reference to the latter.

Best,

Alistair

This is a curious thing. Why do a transcription from the Cooke reconstruction(s) if you have access to the sketches? Wouldn't going directly from the sketches prove much more valuable and enlightening?

Apparently in the 1930's Friedrich Block (1899-1945) actually did a piano four-hand version from the sketches of movements 2, 4, and 5 which was circulated privately. I get my information from Michael Bosworth on the Mahler list. Does anybody know more about this?

(This may be a project for pianophilia)
 

[ahinton]

This is a curious thing. Why do a transcription from the Cooke reconstruction(s) if you have access to the sketches? Wouldn't going directly from the sketches prove much more valuable and enlightening?

I think that the answer to that would have to be that the latter option would amount to transcribing something that is far from complete in many respects (and I cannot think of any kind of precedent for that); effectively, then, this would mean doing again the kind of work that Cooke did but for the purpose of - and with a view to - making a piano "reduction" of that "completion" / "performing edition" or whatever the transcriber might want to call it.

Apparently in the 1930's Friedrich Block (1899-1945) actually did a piano four-hand version from the sketches of movements 2, 4, and 5 which was circulated privately. I get my information from Michael Bosworth on the Mahler list. Does anybody know more about this?

(This may be a project for pianophilia)
 

I certainly don't, although I have little doubt the the two surviving assistants to Cooke on the Mahler 10 realisation project, composers Colin and David Matthews, do; I'll write to them and ask.

Best,

Alistair

[furtwaengler]

I think M10 was complete in short score...I'll have to go back and study, but I think it was intact.

Right now I'm having quite a time listening to Franz Bouwman's transcription for 2 pianos. There is sometime this very slight lack of precision between Bouwman and the other pianist which oddly gives me a good bit of pleasure...a happy quirk. This has at least to my ears translated quite well to the keyboard, a different experience, but an enlightening one.

[retrouvailles]

I will also be checking out that Bouwman arrangement, for Mahler 10 has piqued my interest considerably in recent days.

Speaking of that, has anyone compared the various reconstructions of that symphony? I am only familiar with the Cooke reconstruction, but might check out others such as the Carpenter.