Mahler Symphony No.10 (Carpenter)

[Alan Howe]

Apparently I'm not supposed to approve of this 'completion' by Clinton A. Carpenter, but I'm finding it very moving - and incredibly well played and recorded by the Dallas Symphony under Andrew Litton:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00006IXH5?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7923990--mahler-symphony-no-10-in-f-sharp-major

Review (negative) here: http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/Jun03/Mahler10_Litton.htm

But oh, the sound here is so beautiful...

[mbhaub]

I've tried many times to listen to the Carpenter with open ears but I just can't get past the orchestration. Scoring to have a real Mahler sound is difficult in the extreme if not impossible. At it's best, the Cooke version cannot hide where Mahler's scoring ends and Cooke begins. Every great composer had a unique sound profile that no one can re-produce (Although Mahler could do it quite well as in Die Drei Pintos). Anyway...Carpenter knew this and so to have a real Mahler sound used real Mahler scoring lifting it right out of the symphonies. The reference to the 7th is particularly annoying. And it's that echt-Mahler borrowed scoring that I just can't get through. I think it was a big mistake for Zinman to use it in his cycle. I'm waiting for someone to use AI and see what it can do to fill in the gaps and orchestrate like Gustav.

[Maury]

I suppose with the completion of the unfinished orchestration of Symphony 10 one is choosing between the typical orchestration of his earlier symphonies or where Mahler seemed to be heading with Das Lied von der Erde. Since I strongly  prefer Mahler's later orchestrations post Sym 8  I lean towards Cooke's version as it is also quite lean by earlier standards. But bigger Mahler fans than myself are naturally going to go the other way most of the time.

[jasthill]

I too am also moved by the Litton-Dallas-Carpenter version of the Mahler 10th.  With respects to the Carpenter version some say it is really more Carpenter's 10th symphony than Mahler's.  In late Mahler I hear elements of Das Lied in the 8th symphony, but in the movement of the 10th that Mahler scored I hear a more Bergian style.  Maybe AI will formulate a version, but if a recent AI generated version of the scherzo to Beethoven's 10th symphony is any indication it will just be a hodgepodge of previous snippets of what was already composed.  This opinion doesn't really answer the question for either side but merely stokes the question of where would have Mahler's style gone?

[Maury]

Jasthill raises an interesting question as to what Mahler would have done if he had lived say to 65 thus 1925. On the basis of the Sym 10 which he did complete in short score and orchestrated much of the first half of the work, there is not really a fundamental change. The Sym 10 is not shorter than his other symphonies and the style is still romantic. The main difference I hear is an almost continuous lyricism in the outer movements. Would this have survived WW1? It seems highly unlikely. It's quite possible he would have just retired as a composer like Sibelius and moved to the US. 

I would also note that Germano Austrian composers even slightly younger than him like Richard Strauss and Alexander Zemlinsky never bothered much with symphonic writing after their student days. So he was increasingly alone.

[Ilja]

I wouldn't say that Zemlinsky and Strauss "never bothered much with symphonic writing" after their student days. There's Zemlinsky's Lyrische Symphonie (1924) and "symphony-ish" Die Seejungfrau (1903), Strauss' Sinfonia Domestica (1903) and Eine Alpensinfonie (1915), and quite a few by others in the Austro-German realm, such as Schmidt, Hausegger, Graener and Marx. Of course, the concept of "symphonic writing", or what could be called a symphony at all had become more fluid by this time, but if anything, Mahler further expanded that definition. Meanwhile, adherents of more traditional symphony-writing pushed away from Mahler rather than towards him; the increasingly modest (in terms of length and forces involved) symphonies of Felix Woyrsch are a good illustration.

[Maury]

We would have to go into an extended and rather technical discussion about the "symphony" in the 20th C to be more precise,  but I think the simplest way to show the difference is to compare Germano-Austrian "symphonic like" writing of the kind you describe with what was going on in the periphery of Europe (Russia/USSR, Scandinavia, England plus to an increasing extent in the US) in the first half of the 20th C where leading composers still numbered their symphonies. Yes the symphonic form was being stretched rather wildly but still was more normative on the periphery than the rather programmatic orchestral works  being composed in Central Europe. I'm talking about the leading composers of the day in these various places because they set the trends. Yes there are always those going along as if nothing was happening outside their house who may be still good composers. By comparison the string quartet form was pretty stable everywhere.

[Ilja]

To be honest, I'm not sure that Mahler would count as a "leading composer" in the Austro-German realm at the time, though. Strauss, definitely, but Mahler?

[Alan Howe]

I think the more accurate view would be to say that Mahler, with the benefit of hindsight, has come to be seen as one of the leading Austro-German composers, specifically of symphonies, of his time.

[Maury]

 We were talking about symphonies specifically per the thread title (my comment was directed to jasthill BTW) and I think it is fair to say that Mahler's symphonies, whether loved or hated, were pretty well known between 1900-1910 in Central Europe. As Director of the Opera House Mahler was hardly a fringe figure, who at the time was regularly writing large symphonies every other year or so. Leading isn't a synonym for wildly revered as in "leading avant garde composer". Franz Schmidt wrote exactly two symphonies before WW1 and only 2 in the remaining 20 years of his life.  (I happen to love his Sym 1 FWIW.) v.Reznicek also wrote precisely 2 symphonies before WW1 and 4 of his 5 by the end of WW1 while he lived to 1945. The fifth in the 1920s was an atypical symphony he also called 4 Dances.  (I happen to love his Sym 4 BTW.) I apologize for gratuitously responding to jasthill. I'll try to be more focused in the future and I do mean all that sincerely. I do very much like the site and the administrators and have already gotten several additions to the Want List.

[Alan Howe]

So, perhaps it's time now to return to the subject of the thread.

[Mark Thomas]

I do very much like the site and the administrators

Thanks for the thumbs up on both counts, Maury. Much appreciated.

[Alan Howe]

Yes, much appreciated. Thank you.

[eschiss1]

You forgot Zemlinsky's sinfonietta.
AI might be able to solve the problem, but it doesn't exist.