For decades following his premature death at the age of 50, it was believed that the fragments of Gustav Mahler’s 10th symphony were just that: skeletal ideas impossible to flesh out into anything worth hearing. It was British musicologist Deryck Cooke who first took a proper look, discovering that crucial melodic lines were intact throughout the entire work. His subsequent lithe-limbed “performing version” has been embraced by many – but some have adopted a more interventionist approach, the most popular being Russian conductor Rudolf Barshai, whose audacious completion Vladimir Jurowski presented here.
As Jurowski admits, Barshai’s orchestrations bring the music closer to Shostakovich and perhaps Britten – both huge fans of Mahler. On its own terms it succeeds, though for those familiar with Cooke’s version it’s a bit of a culture shock. Where the Englishman deployed restraint and a scrupulously Mahlerian palette, in the movements the composer left most incomplete – the second, fourth and fifth – Barshai slathers on the colour. There’s a clattering xylophone, a guitar (miraculously audible amid the orchestral melee), a Wagner tuba, a cornet, a second tuba to beef up the most terrifying passages, a second harp, celesta, woodblocks, tubular bells and a trio of tiny gongs. That these diverse timbral details came over loud and clear was a testament to Jurowski’s textural lucidity and the outstanding playing of the LPO.
We know that Mahler was wrestling with the discovery of his wife’s affair with a young architect while working on the symphony because he etched his anguished thoughts into the very pages of the score. His inner turmoil may even have affected the order of the movements. Jurowski brought out much of that pain, leaning into the gut-wrenching dissonances that burst in upon the serene Adagio. If the fourth movement lost some of its surgical edge, the souped-up Scherzo sparkled and the central Purgatorio was an oasis of ambiguous calm. The funereal finale, with its thwack of offstage drum and desolate flute solo, bore witness to a deftly handled transition from darkness to light. Whether it was Jurowski or Barshai, Mahler’s ultimate glimmer of reconciliation and forgiveness has seldom felt so certain.
