Symphony No. 10

The Concertgebouw Orchestra performances in 1924 in Amsterdam on November 27 and 30 as well as in Arnhem on December 1, The Hague on December 6, and Rotterdam on December 20, followed the Uraufführung of the two complete parts of the unfinished Tenth Symphony, the Adagio and the Purgatorio, by Gustav Mahler. Alma Mahler, Mahler’s widow, together with Ernst Krenek and Alban Berg, had concluded those two parts to be complete for performance. She wanted Mengelberg to conduct the world première, but in the end the Uraufführung took place in Vienna on October 12, 1924, by the Venna Philharmonic under Franz Schalk. The Dutch premiere concerts were prepared carefully in a collaboration between Willem Mengelberg (1871-1951) and Cornelis Dopper. Dopper was a composer and the Assistant Conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra. His task was to prepare (new) works with the orchestra so that Mengelberg merely needed to execute the finishing touch.

With the two movements from the Tenth Symphony, this was a bit different due to the freedom that Alma Mahler had bestowed upon Mengelberg to alter things as he saw fit. Mengelberg’s score bears evidence to the fact that he took advantage of this freedom.

Mengelberg had a copy of the score and performing materials Franz Schalk used, made for himself as well as parts. This original score is kept in the Mengelberg Archive in The Hague (Nederlands Muziek Instituut, Mengelberg conducting scores no. 442). The parts are in the orchestral library of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Mengelberg’s alterations went beyond doubling or strengthening certain parts. Here and there in the third movement, Purgatorio, Mengelberg ‘composed’ extra parts. As well, in both movements he noted rudimental instrumental augmentations which were then worked out in detail by Dopper and added to the score, for example, for the percussion.

Musicologist Rudolph Stephan noted (in 1986) that Mengelberg actually made his own transcription of the work, that he also corrected aspects not found in Schalk’s conductor’s score. Mengelberg must have taken his corrections from the facsimile which was published by Zsolnay just prior to the Uraufführung in Vienna by the Venna Philharmonic under Franz Schalk.

- Dr. Frits Zwart, Director of the Netherlands Music Institute and member of the board of the Willem Mengelberg Stiftung, January 2019

The modern edition of this score was made possible by the Willem Mengelberg Stiftung (Switzerland) and realized by musicologist Marinus Degenkamp.