[MarkW]

I love to sample non-Cooke editions of the tenth, and am continually surprised at how the completed first movement survives whatever is done to it. Maybe more indestructible than other movement he wrote.

Favorite edition: Mazetti 2. Various reasons. Sounds slighty more Mahlerian than Cooke. Gets rid of xylophone in 4th movement. Segues 4th and 5th movements with a single drumbeat -- which I've wanted to do since first hearing the first (Ormandy) recording eons ago. Gives the slow beginning to the last movement to the string basses rather than the Wagner tuba (which one wag of a critic likened to Fafner waking up hungover).

To my knowledge this edition has only been recorded by Lopes-Cobos and the Cinncinati Symphony -- but it's a gorgeous performance. The long flute solo at the beginning of the finale will take your breathe away. And the conductor has a wonderful way of dealing with the Klezmer passages in the inner movements. And that last Big Chord (and the passages melting away from it at the end) are shattering. Good job!

 

[MarkW]

In her liner notes to the recording, Castelletti describes the symphony as 'possibly one of Mahler's most passionate emotional outbursts and autobiographical creations'.
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Of course if he had died shortly after completing the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, or Das Lied, would commentators be saying the same thing about those works?

 

[MarkW]

Having not been familiar with Mahler 10th completions beforehand besides Wyn Morris's Cook version I just finished listening to 9 Cooks, 2 Mazzettis, 2 Barshais and one of Carpenter, Wheeler, Gamzou, Samale-Mazzuca and the chamber version by Castelletti. Took me a bit. At times it felt as though I was writing a Mahler's symphony myself lol But today finally hooray hooray!

My outright winner was Mazzetti. I thought his version to be the most exciting somewhat reminiscent of the 5th and the 6th while Cook's version was more similar to the 3rd and the 9th. My favorite Cook was a more gentle Rattle with BPO. I also liked Barshai's version which is more in the vein of Mazzetti's.

Lopez-Cobos's Mazzetti would be the one I'd be listening to the most ...that is unless I change my mind in the future

Seconded .