Summary of MahlerFest X As promised, we managed to get the Wheeler score of Mahler’s Tenth into shape, parts printed and assembled, and presented Saturday and Sunday, 11/12 January 1997.
Through the very intense help of three experts on Mahler and especially on the Tenth, we were able to identify and correct many transcription errors Wheeler made in preparing his fourth version, finished in 1965.
Frans Bouwman, a Dutch musician from the Hague, became interested in the Tenth in 1985, in preparation for the Utrecht Symposium on the Tenth in 1986. Frans has put together a set of manuscript sketches for the Tenth which is undoubtedly more complete and better organized than has ever been available. He also carefully and painstakingly transcribed all the manuscripts, some of which have not been published before, and some of which are barely legible, into a coherent set so that Mahler’s progression from his first four-stave sketches (particell) to first orchestral draft to complete orchestral draft (of first movement only) may be studied. Frans was with us for the whole week of rehearsals and worked every day with Robert Olson and Prof. Edward Reilly, probably the world’s leading expert on Mahler manuscripts, on preparing error lists to be incorporated into the score. Final errors were corrected in the score just before the final performance on Sunday!
Remo Mazzetti, himself one of the four editors of the Mahler Tenth, studied the various Wheeler scores and provided us with a large number of corrections and suggestions. Mazzetti, in his study of the Wheeler score, pointed out to us that Wheeler only completed two full versions, which are misleadingly numbered 3 and 4. Evidently, and in accord with our best information, versions 1 and 2, started in 1953, included Wheeler’s work on orchestration only for movements II, IV and V, inasmuch as the so-called Krenek version published in 1953 covered movements I and III. When Wheeler had finished movements II, IV and V he became dissatisfied with the Krenek versions of I and III and then set about applying his ideas to the entire symphony.
The work on entering the score into the computer continued right up till a week or so before the first rehearsals, and some final parts were assembled for the players the morning of that first rehearsal. There must be something to be said for such pressure and tension, for the rehearsals went well, the players were sympathetic to our score problems, and were enthusiastic about the music once they had it in front of them.
Now that it is over, we have ahead of us the task of editing the digital recordings into a satisfactory composite, and we hope to issue a MahlerFest CD of the Wheeler version as edited by Robert Olson so that Mahlerites everywhere can have a chance to fill this missing gap in the Mahler recorded literature.
Watch this WWW page for further details.