English Commentary by Sergio Cánovas

Mahler’s tenth symphony was started in the summer of 1910 but was never finished, as h Mahler died may 18 of 1911. The only movement fully orchestrated was the first, the adagio. The third was quite complete and the rest of the movements were in a schematic phase, but with their design finished. Bruno Walter claimed that Mahler had asked him to destroy the score if it was not finished on the day of his death. He had never left a score unfinished, before he destroyed them, in the same way he did with his youthful works. 

If today we can have the pleasure of listening to part of Mahler’s posthumous work, we owe it to his wife Alma, who in 1924 authorized the Viennese publisher Paul Zsolnay to publish the copy of the manuscript, with the surprise of finding a totally planned symphony, comprising five movements. Composer Ernst Krenek completed the instrumentation of the first and third movements, those that were more advanced, and premiered them at the Vienna Opera, performed by the Philharmonic under the direction of Franck Schalk. Finally in 1964, the Mahler Gesellschaft Foundation definitively corrected the Adagio’s score.

Deryck Cooke, an English musicologist born in Leicester in 1919 and specialized in Mahler, was working on the BBC staff when he was commissioned to do a job to celebrate the centenary of Mahler’s birth in 1960. On December 19, 1960, the BBC in London made a broadcast of the symphony with the two incomplete scherzos, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Berthold Goldschmidt.

But Cooke was not satisfied with this version and continued to work with the manuscripts left by Mahler, discovering that they said more. He made a new version of the complete work, but without correcting any of Mahler’s musical ideas. Its only function was to complete what was missing, to make it an executable work. But then Alma Mahler emerged again, wanting her husband’s wishes to be respected. He strictly prohibited the work to be performed again. It seems that he was influenced by Bruno Walter, who also supported this idea.

In 1962, conductor Harold Bryns convinced Alma to listen to a tape recording of Cooke’s first version of 1960’s performance. Neither she nor Bruno Walter had ever listened to it. Walter had died when Mrs. Mahler listened to the aforementioned recording with emotion. The work moved her in such a way that she bursted into tears. Now she understood what her dead husband had meant and could not help leaving the world without being able to hear that music.

The result was that on May 8, 1963, the ban was lifted. It could be freely interpreted anywhere on the planet. The completed and corrected version was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, also conducted by Goldschmidt, on August 13, 1964 and published in 1967. But it would still undergo a new correction. The premiere of the definitive version was held on October 15, 1972 with the New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Wyn Morris and would be published in 1976.

The first movement is built in the classical sonata form, but interpreted in a new way, which gives more importance to thematic variation than to the strength of contrast between the themes, as understood in its classical sense. It begins with a slow introduction by violas, presenting an austere theme. The first theme of the movement is followed by the first violins, accompanied by the rest of the high strings and the trombone. A melody of great intensity. The theme increases its expression, until the appearance again of the theme of the introduction. The themes are modified during their development, using clearly expressionist techniques.

The themes fragment and undergo, what the German musicologist Tyll Rohland quite rightly calls, a morphological variation. In the classical variation, the morphology of the theme remains, something that now, as will be seen later in modern music, the themes are built and disintegrated, to be joined again later, but made of different wood, as for example it would be doing it inverted. This creates a movement with an almost unreal music, with the use of instruments in their extreme registers. The music culminates in a great climax, with sharp metal chords, dissonant chords from the string, and a shrill call from the trumpet, leading to the last section.

It consists of a mixture of the themes, forming a kind of recapitulation with tonal indefiniteness. A music that opens towards the future, towards the breakdown of the tonal system. Mahler had gone to the extreme of what could be done with music without breaking tonality. His ideas would soon be picked up by the second Vienna school, by Schönberg, who, as will be seen in his early works, collects what was proposed by Mahler, before completely breaking the system. An extensive coda resolves the movement, creating a climate of total resignation.

The second movement consists of the first scherzo. It is the least completed part by Mahler of the work. Surely he intended to revise it deeply. Despite everything, it retains the freshness of the first inspiration, like an uncut diamond. It consists of a scathing ländler, with constant rhythm changes, difficult for the orchestra to interpret, an example of what will be known in the future as polyrhythm.

The trio contrasts, with its slow waltz form in a rustic way. It consists of a variation on the theme of the adagio. Then it continues with the wild rhythm of the scherzo, with variations highlighted by the trumpets. A new trio appears, shorter, with some melodic phrases interpreted by the string and then enhanced by the trumpets. The final part of the scherzo has a more joyous atmosphere, ending with an expression of joy.

The third movement is titled Purgatory. It is a kind of prelude that precedes the final two movements. Its initial rhythm is reminiscent of the one used in the lied Das irdische Leben, the earthly life, from the cycle “Lieder aus Des Knaben Wunderhorn”. The central part is more hectic, containing passionate contrasting phrases. Then it returns to the first part. This short interlude contains the germs of the themes developed in the final movements. Some scales on the harps joining the bass of the orchestra, finish the movement.

The second scherzo is more aggressive. A dance in the form of a ländler but with a diabolical character, interrupted by trios in the rhythm of a waltz, with a more melodic and less violent character. At the beginning of the scherzo, Mahler writes the phrase «Der Teufel tanzt es mit mir» (Satan dances it with me), meaning what he wanted to express. In the final part, after a heartbreaking crescendo, the music disintegrates into murmurs, soft sounds of the clarinet, cellos and double basses, accompanying the weak beats of the drum. When silence is reached, a strong blow from the great military drum closes the movement.

The final movement continues the heartbreaking climate created in the preceding one. Five repetitions of the lugubrious beat of the drum are heard, on a descending scale of the tuba and another ascending of the horns, creating an impressive painful climate. A lengthy flute melody of a consoling nature rises from the dark introduction. Then the strings are incorporated, leading the music to a great burst of passion. Ghoulish drumbeats break the allure of the fiery weather, introducing the middle of the movement. It consists of the development of the themes mentioned in the part of Purgatory.

The climax of the movement is reached by a brutal dissonance from the orchestra, of which a piercing A on the trumpet stands out. The horns have a melodic motif, from which the music becomes more and more ardent and peaceful. It is an exciting expression of a great feeling of love. Finally the music fades away with tender sighs of flutes and clarinets, on the string that slowly disappears. The work closes with a loud roar of the violins, which then fades accompanied by the horns, the last notes of Mahler.

With the third movement the second part of the work begins. A prelude to what he will tell us in the last movements. In the first part, he has presented contrasting feelings and attitudes. This new section will focus more on his personal life. At the most intense point of the middle section write the words «Tod! Verk!», The second possibly being an abbreviation of Verklärung, with which the phrase would become Death and Transfiguration, an idea in accordance with the eastern theories expressed in his last cycle. Later writes «Erbarmen» (have mercy), and then «O Gott! O Gott! Warum hast du mich verlassen?» (Lord! Lord! Why have you abandoned me?) At the end we find the expression «Dein Wille geschehe!» (Thy will be done!)

In the fourth movement we find a text written by Mahler himself, which we reproduce below.

Der Teufel tanzt es mit mir

Wahn, fass mich an, Verfluchten!

Vernichte mich

Das ich vergesse, dass ich bin!

Das ich aufhöre, zu sein

Dass ich ver…

The devil dances it with me

Madness has me imprisoned, damn it!

Annihilates me

so much that I forget who I am

that I stop being

that i forget…

After the great crescendo, signifying its final destruction, its ceasing to be, comes a great silence, broken by the surprising blow of the muted military bass drum. It is his farewell, as the composer himself tells in an expressive text, which accompanies the end of the movement.After the great crescendo, signifying its final destruction, its ceasing to be, comes a great silence, broken by the surprising blow of the muted military bass drum. It is his farewell, as the composer himself tells in an expressive text, which accompanies the end of the movement.

Du allein Weiβt was es bedenkt.

Ach! Ach! Ach! Leb’wohl meine Saitenspiel!

Leb’ wohl!

Only you know what this means

Goodbye, my lyre!

Goodbye!

The Du refers to Alma, his lyre, his inspiration. The meaning Mahler refers to is the drum blow. When the Mahlers were staying at the Majestic Hotel near Central Park, they heard a confusing noise in the street. They opened the window of his room and watched the passage of a funeral procession, which accompanied a dead firefighter in a heroic act of service. They stopped under the window for a short prayer that was followed by silence and a blow of the military drum. The couple’s eyes watered with emotion and Mahler used this blow in his 10th symphony.

The final movement starts from this blow signifying death and continues with a great scene of transfiguration, a great scene of love broken by the memories of the present life. A new break brings us to a glorious ending, with the great lyrical figure symbolizing the great love she felt for Alma, as indicated by her words written on the score: Für dich leben! Für dich sterben! (To live for you! To die for you!).

It can be said that this last symphony is not authorized by its author, that its final version would have been different, which some conductors have taken as sufficient reason for not wanting to interpret it, but what we cannot deny is its greatness as the end of an immense symphonic cycle.

Picture: «Dante and Virgil in the Ninth Circle of Hell» (1861) by the French painter Gustave Doré.

Source: https://bit.ly/2XUQT8s