From the Back Room: the 1893 Version of Mahler's First Symphony

Mahler's Symphony No. 1 is one of his most fascinating and beloved works. The edition that is performed today is, however, not the first or second version of the work. The final 1899 edition replaced an 1893 version that had somewhat different orchestration, an additional movement, and titles for the symphony and its movements that were later discarded.

Today's "From the Back Room" post is the first recording of that 1893 version, which was titled The Titan after the book by Jean Paul. This recording dates from 1970, with the Welsh conductor Wyn Morris leading the New Philharmonia Orchestra.

The young Gustav Mahler

Mahler wrote the first version of the symphony in 1888, and conducted it in Budapest that year. This version is now lost. He revised the orchestration in 1893 for a performance in Weimar. For this second version (the one recorded here), he retained the movement titles he had appended in 1888.

Part 1 - Aus den Tagen der Jugend

I. Frübling und kein Ende [Spring without End]

II. Blumine (Andante) [Flowers]

III. Mit vollen Segeln (Scherzo) [Under Full Sail]

Part 2 - Comedia humana

IV. Totenmarsch in Callots Manier [Funeral March in Callot's Style; aka The Huntsman's Funeral Procession]

V. D'allinferno al Paradiso (Allegro furioso) [From Hell to Heaven]

The brief Blumine is the movement that the composer dropped from the published edition. It is sometimes performed and even recorded with the 1899 version, but this is a solecism. It only makes sense to perform the 1893 version in toto, and even then just for its historical importance. As the Mahler expert Deryck Cooke wrote, reviewing this recording in The Gramophone:

If one gladly welcomes this first-ever recording of the 1893 version of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, it’s purely on account of its great historical and musicological interest. It cannot be emphasised too much that this ‘version’ of the work no longer exists, for practical purposes, since Mahler himself rejected it when he made his final definitive score for publication in 1899. On the other hand, it’s certainly fascinating to be able to hear this early stage of the symphony, with its smaller and less sophisticated orchestration and its extra movement.

Wyn Morris

Here is Cooke's verdict on this particular performance:

[T]he recording is clear enough to make it possible to enjoy Wyn Morris’s remarkably sensitive and powerful interpretation of the five-movement version of the work. He takes the Blumine movement ... just about as slowly as it can be taken - and one feels that the aching nostalgia which results is what the young Mahler would have been aiming at. The Scherzo, following on from Blumine, instead of from the first movement, is taken faster than usual, and so is its trio; this is no doubt inevitable, in the five-movement version, but I find that it robs the scherzo music of its rustic heaviness and the trio music of its charm. But apart from this one dubious point, the overall interpretation has certain special and unusual qualities to recommend it: an absolute fidelity to Mahler’s markings, especially to his lavish use of pianissimo (it’s amazing how much of the first movement is really hushed music), and a fully committed emotional approach to the romantic content of the music.

As Cooke wrote, the recording is "clear enough," but that may be its only virtue. It doesn't possess much presence and the tone at forte is notably edgy.

As for Wyn Morris, his was a talent that was largely unfulfilled. From his 2010 obituary in The Guardian: "Had he come to prominence in the era when truculent, temperamental maestros ruled the roost, the conductor Wyn Morris, who has died at the age of 81, might have achieved far more than he did. His performances could certainly be inspirational, and Morris was not alone in his belief that his accomplishments and reputation failed to do justice to his talent. His irascible, cantankerous nature made him impossible to deal with, however, and time and again even those willing to indulge his erratic behaviour, for the sake of what he had to offer artistically, had to admit defeat."

Morris has appeared on this blog before with the soprano Montserrat Caballé in Debussy's La Damoiselle élue and Chausson's Le Poème de l'amour et la mer. This fine recording is now newly remastered.

LINK to Mahler's Symphony No. 1 (1893 version)