Track Listing

1. Symphony No. 10; I. Adagio
2. Symphony No. 10; II. Scherzo 1. Schnelle Viertel
3. Symphony No. 10; III. Purgatorio. Allegretto moderato
4. Symphony No. 10; IV. Scherzo 2. Allegro pesante
5. Symphony No. 10; V. Finale. Lento, non troppo - Allegro moderato

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21378 in Music
• Released on: 2006-06-06
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Customer Reviews

A brilliant and haunting performance
I have been listening to the Mahler 10th Symphony for years,
and I still regard the Deryck Cooke/ Eugene Ormandy version as the finest ever performed. Unlike the later performing versions by Carpenter and others, this one features a lean, mysterious
and deeply spiritual Finale. It is my opinion that Mahler
never intended to compose a dirge to himself or a love song to his wife in the 10th Symphony. The 10th Symphony is Mahler looking at earthly life from somewhere beyond the mortal plane, whch is why it has such a strangely haunted and, at times, dissonant sound. In the Finale movememt, Mahler finally achieves a fully realized vision of life after death, a resurrection that is not vicarious or theoretical but deeply personal and existential. The last great crescendo and following denouemnent is an ascension of spirit out of flesh, spirit free at last. In my view, there is nothing else like this music in the entire classical repertory. The problem with many other preforming versions of the Finale is that the tempo is so slow that the sense of passage and letting go is lost, mired down in a sentimental mush that I think Mahler would have hated. Only Deryck Cooke and Ormandy got it completely right, which is why this recording is so very important. Every Mahler fan should have this recording.

Best Mahler 10th
I bought the LP set in February 1966, after earlier experiencing the fantastic "premier" performance by Ormandy and the PO. For me no later performance has come close to the vitality and lyricism expressed by Eugene and his band. Plus I find the Cooke I version much better than the rather emaciated, anemic Cooke II version. Given Mahler's predilection for percussion when necessary, Cooke I anticipates this quite well.

The CD is a bit up close in its reproduction, resulting in a few areas of stridency, but in all, it does the LPs justice. Fortunately there's no inner groove distortion of the louder and/or higher pitched sections. In all, an improvement on the original 2-LP set (which I still own 40 years later) and a wonderful realization of the piece.

One wonders what Mahler's final version would have sounded like. There are passages during the initial Adagio that give hints as to what that would have been, kind of a "polytonal" or "simultaneous tone" answer to where Schoenberg was going.

Ormandy allows all this to present itself naturally, and without exaggeration. A great performance. A desert island recording.

At long last, the king returns to the catalogue.
This recording is at last retuning to the catalogue. I had it first on LP, with a side 4 that had trouble tracking due to the drum whacks that begin the 5th movement. My reel-to-reel tape gave up long ago. So now I can hear it again.
Is the wait worth it? Oh yeah! Ormandy always had an uncanny ability to let the music speak for itself, never getting in the way, as Bernstein and others do. I have almost every recording of this symphony that there is, and none of them come up to this fabulous recording. The plangent opening violas prepare us for a trip that will eventually drain us totally. No other recording quite matches the heartrending way Ormandy has with the last movement. And the 1st Deryck Cooke verseion/orchestration still stands the test compared with his own 2nd version, two by Remo Mazzetti, Wheeler, Carpenter and Barshai. Before this recording gets away, buy it and enjoy it. It would be a bargain at twice the price. At this price, we are really the beneficiaries. Now, RCA/Sony how about the Philadelphia/Ormandy Mahler 2nd, Shostakovich 13 and 14, and some of the other neglected Ormandy recordings?