Wyn Morris and Mahler's Tenth

Hello everybody,

45 years ago (in October 1972) the Welsh conductor Wyn Morris and the New Philharmonia Orchestra went to the studio in London and recorded Mahler's 10th Symphony in its entirely for Philips Classics using the Cooke II version. Due to the highly emotional and passionate reading of the score the total time of the performance took as long as 84 minutes and 53 seconds (including pauses between the movements). As a result of this you will never find more dedicated approach of this version. Personally I cannot listen to the last minutes of the symphony without any tears in my eyes - the sorrowful atmosphere of the performance is so powerful!

However, during the recording sessions the audio engineers (Robert Auger, sound engineer & Gavin Barrett, recording producer) utilized the lifelike results of a 4-track (four-channel) analogue master tape. At the time this technology was in frequent use both among the artist of classical and non-classical music. Hearing music through multiple speakers gave more realistic listening experience compared to the standard 2-channel stereo listening.

Now - after the advent of Super Audio CD - there is at last a disc format which gives us a possibility to release this magnificent recording as it was originally meant to be heard: in compelling and pristine multi-channel sound. Moreover when taking the overburn feature of a (Super Audio) CD into account it is possible to fit the whole performance on a single disc instead of usual two (85 minutes of music).

Up to this day the Dutch classical music record label PENTATONE Music has released almost every quadraphonic recording of Philips Classics on SACD. Like the other releases in this series (Remastered Classics and RQR) this Mahler's 10th has never been released in surround, only in stereo as the remastering engineer Jean-Marie Geijsen explained for us during the short "behind the scenes" video on YouTube. (Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBctVE8qGEs)

I have designed a potential album cover (artwork) to this SACD release (check the attached PDF file, please). I really hope PENTATONE will give us this listening pleasure in the years to come.
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Inlay card
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A hearty concurrence on this, and well done on the artwork too. Seems like an obvious choice for Pentatone, but maybe they'd have to pay royalties to Cooke if they released it? If it has to be two discs, what would you recommend as a filler for disc 2?

ubertrout said:

A hearty concurrence on this, and well done on the artwork too. Seems like an obvious choice for Pentatone, but maybe they'd have to pay royalties to Cooke if they released it? If it has to be two discs, what would you recommend as a filler for disc 2?

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Well, as we know receiving licenses and MCH tapes from the vaults of Philips have been much more effortless for PENTATONE at least when we look the amount of their Philips quad remasters. Now this Morris's 1972 recording has become my personal favourite despite for some differences to the final version - it surpasses even Rattle or recent Dausgaard! However, if they decide to release this as a two-disc set the obvious filler for the second disc would be Bernard Haitink's 1975 recording of "Das Lied von der Erde" with Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra as most likely it was recorded originally in 4-channel surround sound (Produced by Volker Straus). And what you said about the royalties may be true, I thought it when I was preparing the text.

A short clarification: despite recorded in multi-channel it is not said that PENTATONE will (ever) release this (Mahler's Tenth) as such on Super Audio CD although it would be a long-awaited event for many. All attachments above (artwork and inlay card) to be understood as my personal suggestions and HAVE NOT BEEN CONFIRMED OR CHECKED BY PENTATONE! We can only keep our fingers crossed and hope the best...

luketsu said:

Well, as we know receiving licenses and MCH tapes from the vaults of Philips have been much more effortless for PENTATONE at least when we look the amount of their Philips quad remasters. Now this Morris's 1972 recording has become my personal favourite despite for some differences to the final version - it surpasses even Rattle or recent Dausgaard! However, if they decide to release this as a two-disc set the obvious filler for the second disc would be Bernard Haitink's 1975 recording of "Das Lied von der Erde" with Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra as most likely it was recorded originally in 4-channel surround sound (Produced by Volker Straus). And what you said about the royalties may be true, I thought it when I was preparing the text.

A short clarification: despite recorded in multi-channel it is not said that PENTATONE will (ever) release this (Mahler's Tenth) as such on Super Audio CD although it would be a long-awaited event for many. All attachments above (artwork and inlay card) to be understood as my personal suggestions and HAVE NOT BEEN CONFIRMED OR CHECKED BY PENTATONE! We can only keep our fingers crossed and hope the best...

Click to expand...

That does seem like an obvious choice. Of course the 5th and 8th from that cycle have made it to Pentatone SACD, no reason why DLVDE shouldn't either, although who knows what condition the tapes are in.

One possible issue might simply be that you'd need a shorter piece than DLVDE - the overall timings would work, but the final movement would need to be track 1 of the 2nd disc and thus you'd likely only have 55 minutes or so left, max.

ubertrout said:

That does seem like an obvious choice. Of course the 5th and 8th from that cycle have made it to Pentatone SACD, no reason why DLVDE shouldn't either, although who knows what condition the tapes are in.

One possible issue might simply be that you'd need a shorter piece than DLVDE - the overall timings would work, but the final movement would need to be track 1 of the 2nd disc and thus you'd likely only have 55 minutes or so left, max.

Click to expand...

You're right. Presumably the other, even more better, choice for the second disc would be Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony, recorded in October 1979 for Philips by Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Bernard Haitink. It was most likely originally a quadraphonic recording, produced by Volker Straus. The central themes of life and death are clearly audible there, especially in the brief coda of the fourth movement, where church organ joins to the orchestra.