David A. Pickett, Ph.D.

musician and scholar

Mahler Research
David Pickett ... the foremost worldwide authority on the extensive material
concerning Mahlers retouchings of the works of other composers.
Dr. Reinhold Kubik, Vice-President of the International Gustav Mahler Society,
Vienna, and chief editor of the Critical Complete Edition of Mahlers works.

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David Pickett ... der weltweit erste Kenner der umfangreichen Materie von Mahlers
Retuschen der Werke anderer Komponisten.
Dr. Reinhold Kubik, Vize-Prsident der Internationalen Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft,
Wien, und Editionsleiter der Kritschen Gesamtausgabe der Werke Mahlers.

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Hier klicken, um einen Artikel von Dr. Reinhold Kubik

ber Mahlers Beethoven Retuschen zu lesen.

Links to Individual Topics

These essays will open in a separate page.
Mahler the Conductor and his Editions
21st century performances of Mahler's Retuschen edited by David Pickett
The IGMG Edition of Beethovens Ninth Symphony with Mahlers Retuschen
The National Symphony Orchestras 2000 Beethoven/Mahler Festival
Recordings of Mahlers music and how faithful they are to his aims

Klezmer Musik in the First Symphony

The Offstage Band in the Second Symphony
The Earliest Recording of the Second Symphony
The "Impossible" Oboe Glissando in the Third Symphony
Interpreting the Beginning of Mahlers Fourth Symphony
Orchestral Balance in Jascha Horensteins Mahler Recordings
Glissandi in the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies
The Naked Note in the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony
Dynamics in the Finale of the Sixth Symphony

David Picketts Blog on various musical themes, including Mahler.

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David Pickett can hardly recall a time when he was not actively engaged in studying the
life and works of the composer and conductor Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). As a
teenager, he studied and copied out the manuscript of Mahler's Tenth Symphony and as
a university professor he has lectured frequently on Mahler and his works.
In 1975, upon seeing original performance materials that Mahler used as a conductor of
the music of other composers and, realising that this was a largely unexplored though
important area of the composer's life, he began to concentrate his studies on Mahler's
conducting career and the changes that Mahler made in the scores he conducted. This
work was done under the direction of Dr. Hans Heimler, the Viennese-born composer,
conductor and musicologist. In the resulting PhD thesis, Gustav Mahler as an
Interpreter (University of Surrey 1989), Pickett catalogued and analysed for the first
time 60 such sources now in archives and private collections in Europe and the USA. His
own experience as a conductor and composer has proved key to understanding Mahler's
intentions and in deciphering the shorthand in Mahler's scores. Click here to open a new
window with background information on David Pickett's thesis and his research into
Mahler's Retuschen.
Pickett has since identified additional sources and, in partnership with the International
Gustav Mahler Society (IGMG) in Vienna, and music publishers Universal Edition and
Josef Weinberger Ltd, is now engaged in editing and publishing transcriptions of these
scores and orchestral materials.

Beethoven: Symphony No.9

The first of these publications, Mahler's version of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, is
expected to appear in 2013. Modern performances have already been given of this
version, which is based exclusively on the score and parts that Mahler prepared in
Vienna for his legendary and controversial performance of 18 February 1900, and which
he continued to use throughout the rest of his conducting career. (He had made an
earlier and different version already in Hamburg, which may one day be the subject of a
separate edition.) The version to be published requires a large string section to balance
the eight horns, four trumpets and quadruple woodwind that he used. Click here to read
more in a new window about Mahlers changes to the instrumentation in Beethoven IX.
and the two versions of the score.
Performances of this edition have been conducted by Leonard Slatkin, Kristjan Jrvi,
Vasily Petrenko, Peter Ruzicka, Neeme Jrvi, Christoph Knig and Robert Spano,
including:
National Symphony Orchestra cond. Leonard Slatkin
15 & 16 September, 2000, Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. The NSO gave further
performances on their East Coast tour in 2004, including in Carnegie Hall, New York.
Tonknstler Orchester, cond. Kristjan Jrvi
29 September and 1 October 2006: Groer Saal, Musikverein, Vienna
30 September 2006: Schloss Grafenegg
2 October 2006: Groer Saal, Festspielhaus St. Plten

CD recording in stereo / surround: Preiser PR90773

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Vasily Petrenko
9 December 2007, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
...the players of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra went at it all with a will,
inspired by David Picketts edition... The Times, London

Weimar Staatskapelle dir. Peter Ruzicka

12 September 2008, Stdtischer Musiverein zu Dsseldorf
London Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Neeme Jrvi
4 February 2009, Royal Festival Hall, London
Click here to open a new window containing a complete list of 21st Century
performances of Mahlers Retuschen edited by David Pickett.

National Symphony Orchestra, 2000 Beethoven Festival

In September 2000, at the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., the National Symphony
Orchestra, Music Director Leonard Slatkin, mounted a two-week Beethoven Festival
focussed on Mahler's Beethoven performance practice. David Pickett was the Festival
Advisor.
Gustav Mahler famously said My time will come. He was referring, of course, to his
own compositions, which started to enter the musical mainstream roughly 50 years
ater his death in 1911. The National Symphony Orchestra's extraordinary Beethoven
Festival has suggested the much more far-fetched possibility that the time for for
Mahler's revisions to Beethoven scores may have come too... The firmest evidence
on behalf of Mahler's insight came in the performance of the Ninth Symphony. It was
like standing before the very familiar Mona Lisa, but suddenly noticing for the very
first time all that exquisite detail in the distance over her shoulders. In some places
it felt like going from black-and-white Kansas to Technicolor Oz.
The Sun, Washington, D.C.

Click here to open a new window and read more about this festival.

Conference Papers on Mahler

My search for the Written Sources of Mahlers Retuschen, the Identification of his
Copyists, and the Significance of his Changes to the Works of other Composers
Symposium: Mahler as Interpreter; Mahler as Interpreted, New England Conservatory,
Boston, MA, 30 November, 2011
Was mir die Aufnahmen erzhlen Mahlers Orchester und Spieltechnik im Licht von
frhen Aufnahmen (What the Recordings tell me Mahler's Orchestras and their
Playing Technique in the Light of Early Recordings)
Symposium: Instrumente und Musizierpraxis zur Zeit Gustav Mahlers, Vienna, April
2005
Talentlos und Phlegmatisch: Mahler und die New Yorker Philharmoniker (Talentless
and Phlegmatic: Mahler and the New York Philharmonic Players)
Symposium: Instrumente und Musizierpraxis zur Zeit Gustav Mahlers, Vienna, April
2005
Gustav Mahler in the Recording Studio.
International Association of Sound Archives conference, Vienna, September 1999
Gustav Mahler through Loudspeakers.
British Musicological Societies Conference, Guildford, England, July 1999
Gustav Mahler, the Conductor.
"Music as a Performing Art" Conference, University of Helsinki, Finland, November 1987

Publications about Mahler

La interpretacin de la Sptima Sinfona de Mahler
Quodlibet, No. 49, JanApr 2011. (Universidad de Alcal, Spain)
Ich mu aus dem Gefhl der Selbsterhaltung heraus und der Achtung vor mir selbst
Konzerte dirigieren ber Mahlers schpferische Aktivitten im Konzertsaal:
Repertoire und Quellen (Out of instincts of self-preservation and self-respect I must
conduct concerts about Mahlers Creative Activities in the Concert Hall: Repertoire
and Sources) In Peter Revers und Oliver Korte: Gustav Mahler Interpretationen
seiner Werke, Laaber Verlag, 2011.
Die anlsslich von Gustav Mahlers 100. Todestag von Peter Revers und Oliver Korte
herausgegebenen 2-bndigen Mahler-Interpretationen ergnzen die verdienstvolle
Reihe von Kompendien zum Schaffen von Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn
Bartholdy und Schnberg im Laaber-Verlag. Ein namhaftes, in der Mahlerforschung
ausgewiesenes Autorenteam aus der deutschsprachigen Musikwissenschaft bietet
ausfhrliche und anschauliche Werkbesprechungen von den unvollendeten Jugendwerken bis zum Sptwerk dieses wichtigen Komponisten am Schnittpunkt von
Sptromantik und Moderne. Vier eingestreute Exkurse verbinden sich zusammen mit
einer Darstellung von Mahlers zahlreichen Bearbeitungen und Retuschen an Werken
anderer Komponisten im Rahmen seiner Dirigierttigkeit zu einem umfassenden
Gesamtbild Mahlers. [...] Aufschlussreich ist zu Beschluss des Abschnittes ber
Mahlers schpferische Aktivitten im Konzertsaal eine Zusammenstellung seines
Konzert- und Opernrepertoires als Dirigent (Bd. 2, S. 483f).
Hartmut Mller, Rostock, 22.07.2012

Was mir die Aufnahmen erzhlen Mahlers Orchester und Spieltechnik im Licht von
frhen Aufnahmen (What the Recordings tell me Mahler's Orchestras and their

Playing Technique in the Light of Early Recordings.)

In Kubik: Instrumente und Musizierpraxis zur Zeit Gustav Mahlers, Bhlau Verlag, 2007
Talentlos und Phlegmatisch: Mahler und die New Yorker Philharmoniker (Talentless
and Phlegmatic: Mahler and the New York Philharmonic Players)
In Kubik: Instrumente und Musizierpraxis zur Zeit Gustav Mahlers, Bhlau Verlag, 2007
Beethovens 9. Symphonie in Mahlers Bearbeitung (Beethovens Ninth Symphony in
Mahlers Arrangement).
sterreichische Musikzeitschrift, Jan 2007
Arrangements and Retuschen Mahler and 19th Century Performance Practice.
In Barham: The Cambridge Companion to Mahler, Cambridge University Press, 2007
Do not forget that I have the most sensitive, most reliable copyist in Vienna... /
Vergi nicht, da ich in Wien auch den feinsten, verllichsten Copisten habe... (with
Reinhold Kubik)
News about Mahler Research 54 / Nachrichten zur Mahler-Forschung 54, Internationale
Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft, Wien, 2006
Mahler on Record the Spirit or the Letter?
In Barham: Perspectives on Gustav Mahler. Ashgate Press, 2005
David Pickett examines the extent to which historically and technically the recording
medium in particular has both served Mahler by disseminating his music more widely
than he could ever have thought possible, and undermined his cause through
negligence and misunderstanding on the part of certain interpreters. In so doing,
Pickett re-establishes the importance of discographic studies as an indispensable tool
in understanding traditions of performance practice and broader configurations of
reception history. (from the Introduction)

...One of the most thought-provoking essays in the collection is David Pickett's

"Mahler on Record: The Spirit or the Letter?," which debates whether conductors on
recordings of Mahler's symphonies have appropriately adjusted to the technology of
the recording studio to realize Mahler's intentions for the concert hall, insofar as this
is possible... Brien Weiner, Notes

Extracts from this essay may be read here.

New Light on Three Photographs and a Letter / Drei Photographien und ein Brief in
neuem Licht.
News about Mahler Research 40 / Nachrichten zur Mahler-Forschung 40, Internationale
Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft, Wien, 1999

Citations of David Pickett's Writing on Mahler

Henry-Louis de La Grange, Gustav Mahler (Vol.4): A New Life Cut Short, Oxford
University Press, 2008. Appendix 1Bc. The Unfinished Tenth Symphony.
Prof. La Grange's four volume work is recognized as the standard biography of Mahler.
It includes detailed discussions and analyses of Mahler's compositions and conducting
career, refers in detail to Picketts research on Mahlers Retuschen, and quotes his
opinion of the realization of Mahlers unfinished Tenth Symphony by Samale and
Mazzuca.

 Bernd Schabbing, Gustav Mahler als Konzert- und Operndirigent in Hamburg, Verlag
Ernst Kuhn, Berlin 2002.
Dr. Bernd Schabbings excellent study of Mahlers performing activity in Hamburg
(1891-1897) refers frequently to Pickett's thesis and his study of the retouched
conducting scores that Mahler used in concert during that period.
Anna Ficarella, Mahler interprete wagneriano di Beethoven: storia di una ricezione
controversa, Studi musicali, no.2, Rome, 2012. p.375 412
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Copyright David Pickett 20092014