Yoel L. Arbeitman ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>John Proffitt wrote:
>
>>...  Few music lovers would be without, e.g., the Mozart Requiem or
>>Puccini's Turandot or Bartok's Viola Concerto, among other repertory
>>works rendered "complete" by other hands.  Of course, Bernstein refused
>>to consider a completed Mahler 10th, but then, that was not the first
>>or only time that Lenny was flat out wrong.
>
>I would make bold to suggest that the matter of Mahler's 10th is somewhat
>different from either Turandot or WAM's Requiem.  However unhappy one
>might be that these works were not completed by their resp.  composers,
>they were largely completed.

Oh, I think there's a good case to be made that Mahler 10 was more
complete than Mozart's Requiem.  Mozart was fortunate in having Sussmayr
- as I once pointed out in a review, Sussmayr was in a position most
latterday musicologists could only dream of: he was completely, totally
familiar with Mozart's idiom and the musical conventions of Mozart's
time, in a way that nobody who was not alive then ever could be.

Although Cooke, Carpenter, Mazzetti, Wheeler et al have had to fill in
a considerable amount of texture and counterpoint, there is no doubt
that Mahler's musical line is complete through the five movements.  This,
or so is my understanding, is not the case with Wolfie's Reqiuem (I don't
know enough about Turandot to comment).

deryk barker
([log in to unmask], http://www.camosun.bc.ca/~dbarker)