Search - Mahler, Mark Wigglesworth, BBC National Orchestra of Wales :: Mahler - Symphony No. 10

A musical Tenth, but not in the first rank

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 06/20/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Generally a conductor who is good at Shostakovich has a fair chance of being good at Mahler, and Mark Wigglesworth is quite good at Shostakovich. Therefore, I turned to this Mahler Tenth, which sells for pennies on the used market. It was made in concert in 1993 when the conductor was only 29. An ambitious undertaking, and it turns out to be an assured reading with no gaffes and nicely handled orchestral execution form the BBC's orchestra in Wales. Provincial German orchestras are often much better than expected, and that's turning out to be true of those in the UK as well. Mahler is by no means beyond them.



The best thing here is Wigglesworth's passionate, even harrowing reading of the opening Adagio. If the rest of the performance had kept pace, this would have been an outstanding Cd. As it is, the middle three movements wander a bit, and the enigmatic finale, although better, doesn't find the kind of advocacy it needs to surmount long bare stretches -- Mahler left this movement in the thinnest condition of the five. Simon Rattle and Riccardo Chailly are helped in their recordings of the Tenth by virtuosic execution, papering over rough patches with outstanding solo work.



In all, this is a Tenth very much worth hearing, and Wigglesworth has gone on to gain a reputation. But I'll stick with Rattle, Chailly, and Ormandy in the Deryck Cooke performing edition."