One drawing card for this album, which hit classical charts at the end of 2022, is the presence of an edition of
Mahler
's
Symphony No. 10 in F sharp minor
made in 1924 by
Willem Mengelberg
and
Cornelis Dopper
in Amsterdam for the premiere of the work's two completed movements there. This edition has never been recorded before, and it is certainly of interest due to the close relationship between
Mengelberg
.
altered
's existing score substantially, beefing up the percussion parts somewhat in the Adagio first movement and even more so in the second movement, "Purgatorio." It would be poor form to complain about this, inasmuch as
, as a conductor, was known for just such free treatment of the scores he performed, but listeners should know what they're getting into. The album was recorded live in Hong Kong in 2019, with the
Hong Kong Philharmonic
under the direction of
Jaap van Zweden
, and a second major attraction of the album is the orchestra's playing. The partnership seems to be gelling, and the string sound from the orchestra can compete with any in Asia.
Naxos
engineers, working on their home ground in Hong Kong, deliver excellent live sound. The interpretations themselves are less noteworthy.
Van Zweden
is a specialist more in
Bruckner
than
, and listeners may feel he misses some of the storm and stress in both the
and the
Shostakovich
Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93
, but others may like a more sedate approach. Sample the rather tame second movement of the
for more of an idea. At any rate, there is much here to recommend a place on shelves and hard drives for this recording. ~ James Manheim