In 1960, the musical world was observing the centenary of the birth of composer Gustav Mahler. A British musicologist named Deryck Cooke hit upon the idea of preparing a performing edition of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10, a work left unfinished at the time of Mahler’s death in 1911. This was a daunting task for two reasons.

First, Mahler’s widow, Alma, had resisted efforts for too close an examination of Mahler’s sketches for his 10th Symphony, as these were peppered with emotionally charged comments to her in Mahler’s hand, painful reminders that her husband was working on this symphony at a time when he had just discovered she was having an affair with another man.

The second hurdle was purely musical in nature: even though Mahler had sketched out the symphony in full, he had left most of it unorchestrated. Now, Mahler was a master orchestration, and it was argued that only a similarly gifted composer could flesh out Mahler’s sketches. Schoenberg and Shostakovich were both asked to do so, and both declined.

Deryck Cooke, however, persisted, and completed his version of Mahler’s Tenth in time for some excerpts to be broadcast over BBC radio. Understandably, that broadcast spurred interest in hearing all of Cooke’s realization.

Eventually even Alma relented, dropping her opposition to the project shortly before her death. And so, on today’s date in 1964, Bertold Goldschmidt conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the first complete concert performance of Deryck Cooke’s arrangement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10.