Wien Musikverein Großer Saal Musikverein | Großer Saal
© Takashi Iijima
Memory, leave-taking and collapse: those are the themes of Gustav Mahler’s Ninth, his last completed symphony, which could only be premiered after his death. Which is why there was initially a long-running controversy about whether he was coming to terms with his own approaching death in this work. Later scholars were skeptical. These days, this Janus-headed work is seen, for all its backward-looking character, as a sign of the beginning of what came to be termed modernism in music. In a unique form concept, the slow first and last movements, dominated by a doomsday mood, bookend two fast middle movements that recall the turbulences of life and the world. The Finale becomes a breathtaking protocol of evanescence.
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