Gustav Mahler drafted a Scherzo in C minor and a Presto in F major. He did not finish either of these works, and musicologists did not know about them until twenty years ago. The Scherzo was first found in a collection of manuscripts that belonged to Hans Moldenhauer; he later sold it to the city of Vienna and since then it has been in the Wiener Stadtbibliothek (Municipal Library). The Presto is in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, to which it came in a collection made by the wife of Mahler’s nephew. We know that both of these manuscripts were in the collection of Mahler’s wife, Alma, because she allowed the composer Alban Berg to study the two manuscripts in the 1920s. He believed that Mahler wrote both the Scherzo and the Presto when he was young, perhaps before writing any of the symphonies or songs we know. But he did not try to guess any dates, because Mahler himself did not write dates in the manuscripts. Mahler’s friend and classmate Natalie Bauer-Lechner mentioned two symphonies that Mahler had composed when they were students in Vienna in the 1870s; and Mahler himself referred to a “Nordic” Symphony or Suite in a letter during 1879. Berg may have heard about those works and assumed that these two movements were parts of them. But Mahler actually composed these works many years after his student period; he wrote them after he returned to Vienna as Director of the Opera in 1897. I want to discuss how much work he did when composing them, why he did not finish them, and whether it is possible to make them performable.

Mahler did not mention either of these works by name in his correspondence, and neither his wife nor his friends Guido Adler, Bruno Walter, Natalie Bauer-Lechner or Richard Specht referred to them in their biographies of Mahler after his death. So when Alban Berg examined the two manuscripts only he and Alma Mahler knew about them. In the first of the two cover pages Berg wrote, which is with the Scherzo, what he wrote in German translates as follows:

"7 pages of manuscript written on single sides, completely unknown, belonging to none of Mahler’s familiar works; also not to the Tenth Symphony. [The sketch] appears to behave like a scherzo type of movement in 6/8 meter with a possible trio (4) in 2/4 meter; earlier, if not from the earliest time, however, the many blue informational numerals appear to stem from a more recent time, as if Mahler had later thought of possibly using the thematic material of these old sketches."

We should remember that Berg was a student of Arnold Schoenberg, who freely admitted Mahler’s influence, which we now recognize as the gateway to the revolutionary work of the Second Viennese School. But Berg was not a music historian. He did not consider certain clues that help us date these manuscripts. The most important proof is in the paper Mahler used. It is an oblong paper. Almost all of the pages in the two manuscripts show a logo “J. E. & Co.” which refers to the Viennese publisher Josef Eberle. My colleague Steven Hefling pointed out that some pages do not have this logo, but Mahler used those only occasionally. I think he used whatever blank paper was handy. All of the pages are in the same oblong format, with eighteen, twenty or especially twenty-two staves.  Musicologists who have studied Mahler’s manuscripts noticed that Mahler used paper with the logo of Josef Eberle beginning with the manuscripts for the Fourth Symphony, which was the first symphony Mahler wrote after he returned to Vienna as Director of the Opera in 1897. Clearly, the paper had not been available to him when he was not living in Vienna. Also, this paper was not being made when Mahler was a student in Vienna more than twenty years previously. Alexander Weinmann, an expert on music publishing in Vienna, gave the year 1892 for the beginning of the publishing house of Waldheim and Eberle, which published the Fourth Symphony after Mahler returned to Vienna; it was not surprising that the paper Mahler used to write his music was supplied by the same source. In short, there is no way Mahler could have written these manuscripts while he was a student; the paper did not exist until much later. 

I mentioned before that Berg cautioned against confusing either of these movements with the manuscript of Mahler’s last work, the Tenth Symphony. That was a very strange thing for him to write just before he suggested that these were from the earlier time. But there is a reason for it: soon after he studied these manuscripts and wrote his statements, the Tenth Symphony was published in facsimile for the first time in 1924. That work too was unfinished, and it was written on the same paper from the same publisher, which Mahler had used since the turn of the century. It is possible that Alma Mahler had asked Berg to look through all the unidentified manuscripts in her collection to be sure that they were sorted out and not confused with each other, especially with plans to publish the facsimile of the Tenth. So Berg was especially careful to distinguish between different unfinished works of Mahler. Actually he tried too hard, and reached the wrong conclusion about these pages which were not from the Tenth Symphony; he put them as far from Mahler’s last work as he could, but the similar paper proves that they were not much more than a decade before the Tenth. But he made one important judgment which is true: he recognized both the Scherzo and the Presto as movements of a symphony, parts of something bigger, not works by themselves. 

We know Mahler primarily as a composer of songs and symphonies, although there are exceptions like Das Lied von der Erde and the cantata Das klagende Lied. He always favored multi-movement works for orchestra, rather than single-movement overtures or symphonic poems like those of his predecessors Schumann, Brahms, Liszt or Dvorák. Even his colleague Richard Strauss, who wrote in such forms, did not influence him. He may have attempted it in Todtenfeier, which he wrote independently after the First Symphony; but that was revised and ultimately became the first movement of the Second Symphony.

The forms of these two movements are forms Mahler used in symphonies. The first movement does not have a title, but it is in modified scherzo-trio form. The scherzo section is in C minor/C major, and the meter is 6/8; the trio section is in A flat major, with a meter of 2/4. It is followed by a bridge passage that combines the themes of both scherzo and trio. It was necessary for Mahler to modify the trio theme from 2/4 to 6/8 meter in this combination passage, but he had a very good reason: the transition leads to a reprise of the scherzo section.

Mahler had written scherzos in this same key of C minor in the Second, Third and Fourth Symphonies. But in this scherzo he tried an experiment in tonality. The trio sections in the previous works are all in the subdominant or dominant keys related to C minor, for instance, F major in the Third. But in this scherzo Mahler wrote the trio in the remote key of A flat major. This juxtaposition of C minor/major with A flat major found an echo a few years later in a completely different work: the first “Nachtmusik” in the Seventh Symphony.

Mahler’s other experiment in this movement is in the combination of the scherzo and trio themes in the bridge passage leading from the trio back to the scherzo. That is unusual in such movements, but Mahler continued to develop the technique in later works, including the second movement of the Tenth Symphony:

The other movement is labeled “Presto.” That is very rare in Mahler’s works; it is possible that he might have changed the name at a later stage of composition. But the form of this movement is more familiar than its title: it is a rondo, a form Mahler used often. Although the rondo form is usually rather strict, the content can be variable:

Example 1a: opening of Presto in F major

Example 1b: Fifth Symphony (opening of Finale)

Example 1c: Ninth Symphony (end of third movement)


Mahler drafted this movement in G major, but later wrote a verbal note that it should be in F major instead. Here is proof that Mahler could change his mind about something important like the key of one of his movements. He frequently wrote such directions indicating changes in his manuscripts.

When we look at a work of music that the composer did not finish, as we do here, there is an obvious question: why? There are several possible reasons that Mahler did not finish either of these two movements.

First, he may have been overburdened with other work. He certainly complained often that he did not have enough time to compose his music because of his schedule as a conductor. However, from the time he returned to Vienna in 1897 until his death in 1911 he wrote five symphonies and drafted a sixth, as well as Das Lied von der Erde and at least twelve songs, which is a remarkable total for fourteen years. Furthermore, he followed most of those works through the process of publication, making many revisions at every stage. He obviously found time for what he wanted to do!

A second possibility is that he stopped because he was dissatisfied with his work. It is true that these movements are not great works like the ones we know. But even great composers, including Mozart and Beethoven, wrote lesser works which are also well worth hearing. The existing manuscript materials for these two movements show a great deal of inventiveness and much hard work. They include both “sketches,” that is, drafts of passages which would be portions of a continuous work, and “short scores,” complete continuous scores which were a prelude to orchestration. Also, we must consider the possibility that other musical materials related to these were written earlier, even if we no longer have them in hand. In other cases, when Mahler was unhappy with his work, he destroyed it, but not in this case; he devoted a great deal of labor to the manuscript materials we have, and he probably intended to continue his work on them at some time in the future.

A third possibility, which seems quite likely, is that Mahler had problems with his health which interrupted the composition of these works. I particularly suggest that he was working on them in early 1901 when he had a hemorrhage which almost killed him. Although he survived that crisis, he must have been compelled to make choices and set priorities in his work; he may have chosen to work on another composition and never returned to the two movements even when his health had improved. There is one last possibility: he simply put aside the manuscripts and forgot where they were. Some historians might consider it important that he never mentioned the two movements; but the silence of his friends--his sister Justine, his friend Natalie, or his wife Alma-- is perhaps more significant than a welter of detail. Any of these three women who were close to Mahler may have been holding the manuscripts.

The manuscript of the scherzo includes nine pages. The first four pages lay out a short score, primarily in systems of three staves, which comprises a scherzo in 6/8 meter, a trio in 2/4, and a bridge passage in 6/8 meter leading back to the scherzo section. At the end of the fourth page, he wrote “Reprise.” That word shows that he intended to return to the beginning of the scherzo section, which is entirely normal in any scherzo of Mahler or, for that matter, Beethoven, Schubert, Dvořák or Bruckner. The difference here is that he combined the themes of both the scherzo and trio sections, confirming in music what he wrote in words.  

Example 2a: opening of scherzo theme

Example 2b: opening of trio theme

Example 2c: bridge passage

So Mahler showed both verbally and musically that he intended to return to the opening. But he did not write out the return, he just showed that he intended it with the word “Reprise.” And when we go back to the beginning of the manuscript and repeat the Scherzo, there is a problem: he did not specifically show a place where it should end. There are several possible places where that could happen, and I will discuss my own solution to this problem later in this article.

The other five pages comprise sketches, most of which are variants for many passages in the short score. Mahler’s modus operandi when he composed was to begin with such materials as these, working on individual passages for melody and harmony, and then to proceed to the short score where he laid out the full melody and constructed the form. Only later did he become involved with orchestration. Therefore, these sketches represent the earliest music we have for this scherzo, and it is important to study them closely and compare them with the later developed versions of the same music in the short score.

The Presto is shorter than the Scherzo; it consists of three pages, two in cut time and one in 3/2 time. But these few pages are very crowded with writing. Again, the music is laid out in systems which are usually three staves deep. In the case of this page, which is the first of the three, there is a bar of music on the other side. It continues the music at the end of the first side of the page, and it connects with the beginning of the second page too.

Example 3: continuity passage from end of first page to beginning of second page of Presto

When I first looked at the third page, I wondered if it belonged with the other two at all. It is in 3/2 meter instead of cut time, and in D major instead of G major. The key signature of two sharps is not at the beginning of this page, but about halfway down; but in the first half of the page Mahler used sharps and naturals with the notes and so made the D major clear even before he used the key signature.

At the top of this page, Mahler wrote “Coda der Themen” (coda of the theme). This made me wonder if the music under those words was related to the main theme of the movement, so I made a comparison.

Example 4a: main theme of Presto

Example 4b: coda theme of Presto

The melodic lines are not the same, but the harmony underlying them is definitely related, and the two lines can actually be played together.

Example 4c: combination of main theme of Presto and coda

For purposes of this demonstration, I put both themes into a single key rather than the two keys in which Mahler wrote the music on the page. But remember that Mahler composed the first two pages in G major, then wrote a note that he wanted them in F major instead--and on the last page he wrote in D major. This should not be a surprise to anyone who has studied many of Mahler’s manuscripts. It was not unusual for Mahler to experiment with different keys while composing, and he sometimes did that as late as his orchestral scores. There is a complicated example of this in the Adagio of the Tenth Symphony (another work that Mahler did not finish); he went through seven versions of a passage in D major before finally deciding to put it in E flat major, and that was in the orchestral score! So it is possible that in this Presto, which he wrote in G major and then changed to F major, he could draft the coda in D major, which is related to both of the other keys.

It is unlikely that he would have changed the meter of the coda. There was no need to do that. Many times, in other works, Mahler wrote a single musical idea in different meters. This is what he did with “Das himmlische Leben,” a song he had written in 1892, tried to situate in the Third Symphony, and ultimately placed it as the last movement of the Fourth. He wrote it in duple meter, but during the time he was composing the Third Symphony he rewrote some of the same music in triple meter in the scherzando movement.

There is a subtler example of this type of change in the Tenth Symphony, where the main theme of the first movement (in common time) is reworked in triple meter in the trio of the first scherzo.

As Mahler had done in other works, he could easily have done in this one. At the end of the second page, Mahler wrote the word “Anfang” (beginning). This is another way of saying that he intended a return to the beginning of the movement on the first page; it is a da capo. Just as he had done in the Scherzo, he wrote the word and also showed it in the music; at the end of the second page, he began a new version of the opening of the movement in faster notes:

Example 5a: opening theme of Presto

Example 5b: opening of variant from end of second page of Presto

Since this movement is a rondo, the return to the beginning makes good sense. The form is based on a main theme with contrasting episodes, but even when Mahler modified the main theme it was always recognizable. But if the movement was to end with the coda, as Mahler suggested both verbally and harmonically on the third page, the problem is to find where Mahler wanted the coda to come in after the return to the rondo theme. He did not make that clear in the score, and that leaves a problem, which I will address in a little while.

So here are two pieces of music that would probably have been movements in a symphony or symphonies. They are not related to any of the movements in the ten symphonies we know; and neither Mahler nor his friends mentioned any plans for another symphony, especially in the middle of a series of symphonies that he did finish. There is no proof that they belong together. But there are several reasons to believe that there are links between them.

First, they both survived independently. Mahler apparently had plans for them, although it is unlikely that he intended to place either of them in any of the works we do know. They were perhaps integral to plans for a totally different symphony.

Second, the forms of the movements show that, if they had been parts of a symphony, they would not have been opening or closing movements. Mahler usually placed his scherzo movements second or third, never first or last. He did use the rondo form in both internal movements (like the third movement of the Ninth Symphony) and final movements (like the ones in the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies). These forms are both based on the da capo principle; Mahler usually adapted models which date back to the time of Haydn, and he knew that and said it when composing the Third Symphony. Mahler was surprisingly conservative in his use of form compared to his radical innovations in melody, harmony and orchestration.

Third, there is a tonal balance between these two movements. I mentioned before that the Scherzo is in C minor with the trio in A flat major, and this is comparable to the first “Nachtmusik” movement in the Seventh Symphony. If we look at the Presto, we see that Mahler’s decision to change the key to F major puts it in the same key as the fourth movement of the Seventh, which is called “Nachtmusik,” like the second movement. This unusual parallel between our two movements and those in the Seventh was noticed by the American composer Alan Stout. He does not believe that these two movements are replacements for the ones in the Seventh, and neither do I. But the parallel is so remarkable that these movements may be considered foreshadows several years before Mahler began composing the Seventh Symphony. 

Both manuscripts bear large numerals in blue pencil, and this is quite a strong contrast with the plain pencil and black ink which Mahler most often used. It is not easy to guess the meaning of these numbers. They are located in some strange places in the margins. Berg was probably correct when he suggested that the numbers were written on the scores later than the music. My best guess is that they are cryptic signs that Mahler wrote for his own information when planning form, moving passages around to make continuity in the short scores.

So we have two works which balance each other in tonal and formal ways comparable to examples in other symphonies that Mahler did finish. That is reason enough to link them with each other.

I now want to speak about my own experience in making it possible for these movements to be performed. Some may doubt that anything can be done because the manuscripts look quite awful. This question is not unique to the present case. It is still raised in the case of the Tenth Symphony, which Mahler also did not finish. There are several so-called “performing versions” of that symphony; while each version is favored by some listeners, there will always be others who will not approve of any of them because none are purely Mahler’s own work. And, of course, there are such works by other composers too. Schubert left unfinished several symphonies (including the B minor symphony which everyone calls the “Unfinished Symphony”), and these have been “finished” by John Francis Barnett, Felix Weingartner and Brian Newbould. Beethoven sketched a single movement for a Tenth Symphony, and there has been angry controversy about Barry Cooper’s performing version of that movement. Rimsky-Korsakov was notorious for finishing (and changing) the unfinished works of his colleagues Mussorgsky and Borodin, especially their operas. I could mention many other examples, but I will just note the most famous of all: even Süssmayer’s completion of the Mozart Requiem has now been challenged. 

I do not compare these cases with my own work; that would indeed be futile, since each composer had his own modus operandi and each work reached a different point along the road to completion. I do stress that, in many such cases, there are published facsimiles of the composers’ own manuscripts, making it possible to study these materials and then see how much the editor did later so that the music could be performed. Also, without such knowledge of the composer’s manuscript, or a facsimile, we editors could not make a responsible decision whether to do such work at all. Undoubtedly the decision must be based on the state in which the composer left his manuscript. Any editor who decides to do work like this is alone with his own musical ability and, of course, his conscience. And he must maintain his belief in what he is doing against disagreement from others, whether that is because of the basic fact that he is doing it at all, or the secondary but still important assessment of his methodology.  

In making my performing version of these two movements, I acted from the belief that I should do it as conservatively as possible, for the sake of the music that Mahler himself composed. I have done nothing that could not be justified on the basis of comparison with the works that Mahler himself finished; and I have added as little as I believe to be required in order to make this music hearable.

First, it was necessary to correct certain errors that Mahler made in notation. He sometimes omitted rests, and occasionally his note values were not quite accurate. More often, he did not write accidentals where he did not need them (but we do), and those should be added. This is work that editors must do not only in rough scores but in later manuscripts and even in published editions. The editors who have worked with volumes of the Critical Edition spend many months doing it.

Second, it is sometimes necessary to fill in harmonic or contrapuntal texture when Mahler left only a single melodic line. He usually did that because he had written the full music in an earlier passage and presumably intended to add harmony or counterpoint to the recapitulatory passage later. But there are several ways of doing this. He could have written the same harmonies that he had used when he wrote out the whole music the first time, and to choose that option would make my work easy; or he could have held off from doing it complete because he wanted to try something harmonically different under the same melody. 

Example 6: opening main theme of Presto and variation version from end of second page


In this situation, I could take the harmony from the first passage and add it to the second, making it almost the same as it was previously. Or I could just write plain chords by the rules we learn about voice-leading in music theory classes. But the best possibility is to study Mahler’s primary melody in other passages and turn it into secondary counterpoint with this single line. That is not always possible, and when it can be done it is difficult. But it means using Mahler’s own music, and at the turn of the twentieth century he was using such counterpoint more and more often.

Example 7: counter-theme of Presto

Many musicologists notice that Mahler was influenced by folk music or music of other composers, and that such melodies crept into his own works. His ear was sensitive to the music he heard, especially in his work as a conductor and pianist, but he was not stealing the music of others. Even when he quoted a melody that is quite recognizable, he did it differently from the way anyone else would do it, as in the use of “Bruder Martin” (or Frère Jacques) in the penultimate movement of the First Symphony.

In working on the Scherzo, I noted that the harmonic outline of the main theme was based on the well-known melody of the “Dies Irae,” a Gregorian chant dating back to the medieval period. Many modern composers have used this theme; Mahler had used it himself in at least two earlier works, Das klagende Lied and the Second Symphony.

Example 8: “Dies Irae”

It became a structural element when I added harmonic texture to certain passages in the Scherzo.

While I was working on the Presto, two colleagues suggested different influences from music before Mahler’s time. The composer Alan Stout mentioned the example of Carl Maria von Weber in the type of melody, although there are no obvious quotations from Weber’s music. Mahler knew the music of Weber very well; he had conducted both Euryanthe and Der Freischütz in the opera house, several of the overtures and the Konzertstück in the concert hall. And even earlier, in 1888, he had immersed himself in Weber’s music when he completed the unfinished opera Die drei Pintos, which James Zychowicz discussed in his article in the last issue of this newsletter PDF.

The Czech-American conductor Zdenék Macal suggested a second possible influence in the music from Mahler’s native Bohemia. I am not a specialist in the folk music of that region, and therefore I could not explore that possibility in detail. But I did consider the possible influence of music by Mahler’s older colleagues from the Czech Lands, Smetana and Dvořák, which he included in his programs quite often. In the first years after his return to Vienna he conducted Smetana’s Moldau from Ma Vlast and at least three of Dvořák’s orchestral works in the concert hall; he did both The Bartered Bride and Dalibor in the opera house, and negotiated with Dvořák for Rusalka. (Those plans were later cancelled, but Mahler must certainly have studied this opera closely.) I am still investigating these works as possible influences on Mahler’s own compositions, including this Presto; it is at least clear that Mahler was a historic link in Czech music, since his influence was crucial to the Czech composers after the First World War, especially Viktor Ullmann and Hans Krasa. In two cases, I made decisions that may be controversial. In the trio of the Scherzo, Mahler wrote music that is probably not a primary theme:

Example 9: “screwdriver” theme from Scherzo

This sometimes occurs in pre-orchestral scores; I have seen it in the second scherzo of the Tenth Symphony. In this case, I have tried leaving it as it stands (without a primary melody), or adding a theme from an opera that Mahler conducted in Vienna, or writing out the harmonic base of this passage in long notes and then moving it to the upper register for use as a main theme. A professional composer might add his own music in this case, but I have not done that.

The second case, in the coda of the Presto, was much easier to handle. Mahler had written a figure in the bass line, on the dominant, in the first bar only; then, several bars later, he wrote it again, but on the tonic. I believe that what he intended to do was to continue the figure on the dominant without stopping it, and then move to the tonic without any pause; he just did not write it out.

Example 10: ostinato/pedal point theme from coda of Presto

From there it was only a step to my next decision, which was to extend the figure further when it had reached the tonic. This figure is based on a single tone. If it continues, it is harmonically a pedal point and rhythmically an ostinato. Mahler had used these effects in other works, notably in the penultimate movement of the First Symphony, where a two-note ostinato in the timpani opens the movement and returns later. While that example is based on more than one note, the idea of static harmonic underpinning is the same. And in that case the tempo is much slower than in this one; it shows that Mahler was prepared to use effects like t his for considerable blocs of time.

The third task was to solve the problems of form in both movements. I mentioned previously that Mahler wrote “Reprise” at the end of the fourth page of the short score of the Scherzo, and “Anfang” at the end of the second page of the Presto. He used these terms in lieu of da capo - but he did not clearly show where to stop after returning to the opening sections. So in both cases I had to find a place to end the movement. In the case of the Scherzo, I looked at the number of bars: there are 145 bars in the scherzo section, 71 in the trio section and 39 in the bridge passage. The scherzo section is divided into subsections by double-bars at measures 19, 57 and 80. Since the last double-bar at measure 80 is just over halfway to the trio, I decided that it would be best to take the reprise that far; if I had chosen to end at one of the earlier double-bars, the movement as a whole would have been thrown out of balance. So I took the reprise to bar 80 and ended with a codetta of five bars based on bars 81-85 of the manuscript. I filled out the texture with an inversion of Mahler’s melody in the bass line and static chords in other voices.

Example 11: codetta after reprise of Scherzo section

In the case of the Presto, there was a rather different problem. There is an ending to the movement, the coda on the third page, but since Mahler had indicated a return to the opening of the movement on the second page, it was necessary to find a place during the da capo where I could “fork off” to the coda. Without that, we would lose twenty-eight important bars from the movement and thereby weaken the entire form and thematic effect of the Presto. But once again Mahler’s own material provided an important clue; I took the da capo through the first page and turned it over to include the single bar on the reverse. In the first part of the movement, this bar had definitely connected the first page with the second page, and it now served as the connecting link to the coda also.

Example 12a: connecting bar between first and second pages of Presto

Example 12b: connecting bar between first page and coda of Presto

The fourth task I found necessary was mechanical: to change the tonal center of the Presto from G major to F major, in accordance with Mahler’s note above the top line on the first page. The only question in this case was in connection with that third page which has the coda. Mahler had actually experimented with the possibility of ending a movement in a different key from the one in which he began it, most recently in the last movement of the Fourth Symphony, which begins in G major and ends in E major. But in the early and middle symphonies he usually tried such things in the outer movements. Since I believe that both of these movements would have been shorter internal movements, I could not justify beginning the Presto in F major and ending it in D major; therefore I transposed the third page to F major also. I have not regretted that decision, since the alternative would have forced harmonic experimentation in the coda that would probably have been at variance with Mahler’s style.

The most challenging task, which I saved for last - as Mahler himself usually did - was the orchestration. Mahler had written a few abbreviations indicating his plans for scoring in the short scores, but the majority of the orchestration is mine. Some musicologists consider the fact that Mahler never orchestrated the two movements to be sufficient reason to damn my whole work on a performing version. But in the process of orchestration I bore in mind the words of Deryck Cooke, when he was working on the Tenth Symphony:

"I need no telling that to attempt to orchestrate Mahler would be a ludicrous impertinence. But ‘orchestrate’ is not quite the right word here; Mahler conceived his music orchestrally, and his short scores are blue-prints for instrumentation; if studied and auralized persistently enough, they score themselves - in essentials.

There were many cases when I looked at Mahler’s handwriting and it almost jumped off the page and slapped my face, so to speak; for example, that figure in the coda of the Presto which serves as both pedal point and ostinato might as well have been labeled “timpani.” But, of course, there were other instances when I was not so sure, and - as a result - I have made three orchestrations and am now doing some rebalancing in the last one. That may seem like a lot of work, but I have had the best of all possible role models: Gustav Mahler himself, since he made changes in his own orchestration in every symphony through the Seventh at least.

I should point out that, through all my changes, there have been remarkably few in the actual requirements of the orchestra. While Mahler is known for demanding a large orchestra, it is wonderful to observe how often he used sections of the orchestra in rather intimate combinations, especially in internal movements. Since I had concluded that the Scherzo and the Presto were written about the turn of the twentieth century, adjacent to the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, I chose a rather modest orchestra, comparable to Mahler’s orchestration in the Fourth. If I was too cautious, it was because I dreaded the possibility of covering Mahler’s own music too heavily with my own additions.

I emphasize that, through all the changes I have made in the orchestral scores, there have been remarkably few in the actual constitution of the orchestra: deletion of one woodwind instrument (the contrabassoon) and one percussion instrument (the snare drum) and addition of another woodwind (the E flat clarinet).  

I was sure that Mahler would have wanted this sensitive task to be handled with discretion, and for that reason I also took care to make my score a critical edition. I modeled the score on the performing version of the Tenth Symphony by Deryck Cooke, who was very careful to clarify the difference between Mahler’s own materials and his own. He did this in two ways. First, he made a plain transcription of Mahler’s manuscript materials, which he placed at the bottom of the page; second, he directed his publisher to set the score in different-sized type, full-sized for Mahler, miniature-sized for himself. He and his collaborators, including the British composers Colin and David Matthews, also wrote extensive critical notes. 

In my own score, which is not published yet, I too have written critical commentary and placed a plain transcription of Mahler’s manuscripts at the bottom of the page. Since I have no reliable means of differentiating the musical notation by size while writing the score by hand, I decided to make the distinction between Mahler’s work and my own by color-coding: black for Mahler and red for me. This process may seem pedantic, but a musicologist who edits a composer’s manuscript acts as the composer’s assistant, not as his conscience, especially in the case of an unfinished work. Any misrepresentation of Mahler’s own work would be sabotage, which is no favor to him or the work he devoted to these manuscripts. Sometimes doctors say among themselves, “First, do no harm” - and in such work as this, musicologists should remember those words also. It is so easy to do harm in a task like this. 

I should mention now that in the orchestration I have not been completely alone. Besides Alan Stout, the composer whom I mentioned before, I have been advised at different times by Sue Taylor, another Mahler specialist (and a harpist) and Theodore Albrecht (a Beethoven specialist, a conductor as well as a musicologist). But most of the work is my own responsibility.

I believe that this introduction to two works of Mahler not known to exist until many years after his death shows that they should be known through publication and performance. I believe that I am justified in having made my performing version of the two movements; to those who disagree citing the fact that these are “lesser” works of Mahler, I answer that our knowledge of Mahler’s work can only be enhanced by familiarity with all his music, great and small, and--however belatedly--these two movements should be recognized for their historical place in Mahler’s career.


©2003 The Chicago Mahlerites

Acknowledgment:
The musical examples are digitized by Mr. Martin Bernhard.

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