Deryck Cooke

This is by far and away the best short guide to Mahler’s music, written expressly for music lovers by a great scholar who had an unparalleled gift for lucid and attractive exposition.

The book contains full texts, in German and English, of all the poems set by Mahler in his songs and symphonies. For this new, second edition the translations have been carefully revised, and the composer David Matthews has contributed a new preface.

Deryck Cooke, who died in 1976, was renowned worldwide as a Mahler scholar. His performing version of Mahler’s uncompleted ‘Tenth Symphony’ published by Faber Music, has been recorded by Simon Rattle, and is widely performed.