Page 232 - Vinkler, Jonatan, in Jernej Weiss. ur. 2014. Musica et Artes: ob osemdesetletnici Primoža Kureta. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem.
P. 232
musica et artes
Křenek made a fair copy of the first and third movements.5 The consensus at
the time among the majority of musicians was that there was no possibility of
producing performable results from the rest of the sketches.
It was at this stage that musicians who were more fully aware of the de-
tail of the sketches became involved, although the actual chronology is not al-
ways clear. Jack Diether in 1948 drew the sketches to the attention of the Eng-
lishman Joe Wheeler, suggesting that he might attempt to decipher them and
produce a performable score. From 1952 he did just that. Around the same
time, the American Clinton A. Carpenter tackled the same job, but in a dif-
ferent way. Both musicians saw that the sketches were not in the complete
form that one would have expected from Mahler. Wheeler made a fair copy
of the music as it stood, adding only a minimum of detail to make the score
intelligible. Carpenter, on the other hand, sensed a lack of Mahler’s habitu-
al contrapuntal activity and expanded the music in this direction. His coun-
terpoints took two forms: the first was to create counter melodies that com-
plemented what he saw as a fairly barren texture, while the second was to
add melodic material extracted from numerous earlier works by Mahler on
the pretext that this is what the composer regularly did. Neither version, by
Wheeler or Carpenter, was performed at this time.
In 1960 the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) celebrated the
centenary of Mahler’s birth with a complete series of broadcasts of the sym-
phonies. Because the complete Tenth Symphony could not be performed as
it stood, Robert Simpson, the composer and producer, commissioned a lead-
ing musician and Mahler expert, Deryck Cooke, to give a talk on the Tenth
Symphony and the state of the ‘score’. Cooke first of all made a fair copy of
the sketches, finding to his surprise that the music was continuous from start
to finish, even if some sections were sustained only by a single melodic line.
In December 1960 Cooke gave an illustrated talk about the Tenth Sympho-
ny and presented the material with his orchestration in live form with the
Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Berthold Goldschmidt. Apart from
some short breaks in the second and fourth movements the realisation of the
sketches of the symphony was presented complete.6 It must be emphasised
that what was performed was described as ‘a performing version of the sketch-
es.’ Alma Mahler had agreed to the illustrated talk, but when she discovered
5 Published in 1951 by Associated Music Publishers, New York, with additional anonymous edito-
rial work.
6 The recording of this BBC broadcast have been issued by Testament Records, London, SBT 31457
(2011), coupled with a recording of the first performance of the completed version in London in
1964.
230
Křenek made a fair copy of the first and third movements.5 The consensus at
the time among the majority of musicians was that there was no possibility of
producing performable results from the rest of the sketches.
It was at this stage that musicians who were more fully aware of the de-
tail of the sketches became involved, although the actual chronology is not al-
ways clear. Jack Diether in 1948 drew the sketches to the attention of the Eng-
lishman Joe Wheeler, suggesting that he might attempt to decipher them and
produce a performable score. From 1952 he did just that. Around the same
time, the American Clinton A. Carpenter tackled the same job, but in a dif-
ferent way. Both musicians saw that the sketches were not in the complete
form that one would have expected from Mahler. Wheeler made a fair copy
of the music as it stood, adding only a minimum of detail to make the score
intelligible. Carpenter, on the other hand, sensed a lack of Mahler’s habitu-
al contrapuntal activity and expanded the music in this direction. His coun-
terpoints took two forms: the first was to create counter melodies that com-
plemented what he saw as a fairly barren texture, while the second was to
add melodic material extracted from numerous earlier works by Mahler on
the pretext that this is what the composer regularly did. Neither version, by
Wheeler or Carpenter, was performed at this time.
In 1960 the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) celebrated the
centenary of Mahler’s birth with a complete series of broadcasts of the sym-
phonies. Because the complete Tenth Symphony could not be performed as
it stood, Robert Simpson, the composer and producer, commissioned a lead-
ing musician and Mahler expert, Deryck Cooke, to give a talk on the Tenth
Symphony and the state of the ‘score’. Cooke first of all made a fair copy of
the sketches, finding to his surprise that the music was continuous from start
to finish, even if some sections were sustained only by a single melodic line.
In December 1960 Cooke gave an illustrated talk about the Tenth Sympho-
ny and presented the material with his orchestration in live form with the
Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Berthold Goldschmidt. Apart from
some short breaks in the second and fourth movements the realisation of the
sketches of the symphony was presented complete.6 It must be emphasised
that what was performed was described as ‘a performing version of the sketch-
es.’ Alma Mahler had agreed to the illustrated talk, but when she discovered
5 Published in 1951 by Associated Music Publishers, New York, with additional anonymous edito-
rial work.
6 The recording of this BBC broadcast have been issued by Testament Records, London, SBT 31457
(2011), coupled with a recording of the first performance of the completed version in London in
1964.
230
