Gustav Mahler in sound

When Mahler died in 1911, he left an unfinished Tenth symphony, most of which had survived only in melody lines (particel). Mahler's widow, Alma Schindler, maintained the existence of the Tenth secret for a long time. In 1924, she was tormented by money woes because of her opulent lifestyle. German hyperinflation had also played tricks on her. Mahler's swan song saw a new source of income.

Alma asked her son-in-law, the composer Ernst Křenek, for Mahler's Tenth ready to play. It was with some trepidation that he accepted the assignment, but he limited himself to the Adagio and Purgatorio. Indeed, those were the only movements Mahler had already largely orchestrated. Křenek's arrangement was premiered in Vienna.

Alma then sent the score to Willem Mengelberg, the celebrated conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra and important trailblazer for Mahler's work. Mengelberg made his own edition in collaboration with composer Cornelis Dopper. He made adjustments in dynamics and tempo and added percussion in the Adagio. In 1924, Mengelberg gave performances of both parts of Mahler's Tenth in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Arnhem and The Hague. Then his arrangement fell into oblivion for a century, until Jaap van Zweden recently brought it back to life with concerts in Amsterdam and on CD with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

Acoustic or electric recordings featuring Gustav Mahler as conductor are sadly non-existent. Yet here we hear the composer playing himself, thanks to an ingenious fine-mechanical instrument presented at the Leipziger Messe in September 1904: the self-playing or reproduction piano by the Welte Mignon company of Freiburg. 

On 9 November 1905, Gustav Mahler recorded (mechanically) four piano rolls for Welte-Mignon: the songs Ging heut' Morgen über's Feld and Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grunen Wald, as well as the parts Trauermarsch From his recently completed 5th and Das himmlische Leben From the 4th symphony. 

The music gives a very detailed impression of how Mahler played his own music, because the reproduction piano could also sound out tempo, phrasing, pedal use and dynamics. This means we hear not only the notes, but also the interpretation of the soloist - and in this case, the composer. As Mahler himself said: 'Das wichtigste in der Musik steht nicht in den Noten.'

Musicologist and Mahler connoisseur Deryck Cooke (1919-1976) probably knows you from his adaptation of Mahler's unfinished Tenth Symphony for concert performance. In this BBC radio production, Cooke discusses interpretations of Mahler's Fourth Symphony as recorded at the time by Willem Mengelberg, Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer. This BBC radio production was first broadcast in January 1963.