As the Payne/Elgar Symphony No.3 is not Elgar's definitive statement, Mahler did not complete a Symphony No.10. However he left "a work fully prepared in the sketch", the complete unorchestrated musical material. Had he lived, Mahler would almost certainly have shaped the material further. This means that the performance edition prepared by Deryck Cooke in the early 60s is not a completion, but an orchestration of the short score left at Mahler's death in 1911. It nevertheless sounds very "complete", both of itself, and as a summation of the romantic-epic 19th Century German musical tradition. Hereafter, the France of Debussy and Ravel would lead the musical world, and Stravinsky's 1913 Parisian premiere of The Rite of Spring would turn it upside-down.

Simon Rattle has recorded a fine version with the CBSO. In 1980, Rattle conducted the Symphony No.10 in a highly acclaimed performance with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and this new version with the Berlin Philharmonic offers even greater expressive control and power. The tempos are slightly slower and, inevitably, the performances more musically eloquent. The excellent live sound omits all but the very faintest background noise and the grave beauty of the Finale becomes a deeply moving testament to a world long-since gone. --Gary S. Dalkin