Mariss Jansons - Mahler: Symphony No. 9 (2017) [Official Digital Download]

Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony is primarily regarded as the composer’s reaction in the summer of 1908 to the diagnosis of a heart ailment, which he received just before writing the first sketches for the work. Mahler was deeply distraught and cannot have known how few years he still had left to live. His processing and exploration of his life experiences, and of valedictions, the meaning of life, death, salvation, life after death and love, always took place in and through his music. The Ninth Symphony was composed between 1909 and 1910 in Toblach, in a kind of creative frenzy, and was first performed in Vienna on June 26, 1912 by the Vienna Philharmonic, under the baton of Bruno Walter. Mahler had already died on May 18, 1911, and was no longer able to experience the premiere of his last completed work. Willem Mengelberg, the first ardent conductor of the composer’s works, wrote in his score: "Mahler's soul sings its farewell!" Mahler's Ninth Symphony represents the culmination of a development process. The progressive chromaticism and maximum utilization of the tonal are here taken to their limits - and, for the first time, beyond them. Indeed, the two movements that frame the work, in particular, depart from the tonal entirely, pointing clearly to the dawn of a new musical epoch. Alban Berg even called this symphony "the first work of New Music". The Munich concert event of October 2016 is now being released on CD by BR-KLASSIK – it is an outstanding interpretation of one of the most important compositions of the international symphonic repertoire of the early 20th century.

„…there's a feeling of urgency about this new performance that I don't remember in Haitink's Mahler before, as if he is now almost impatient with the Ninth's resigned acceptance of mortality. There's an angularity about the woodwind lines and a rawness to the textures from what is one of Europe's finest orchestras that seems to expose the music's nerve ends…“ (Andrew Clements, The Guardian)

„The pacing of the first movement's peaks and troughs remains a wonder and the cultured, humane adaptability of the Bavarian Radio Symphony strings provides a special benchmark of quality.“ (David Nice, BBC Music Magazine)

Tracklist:

Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911)

Symphony No. 9 in D Major
1 I. Andante comodo 28:01
2 II. Im Tempo eines gemachlichen Landlers - Etwas tappisch und sehr derb 15:45
3 III. Rondo-Burleske: Allegro assai 13:48
4 IV. Adagio - Sehr langsam und noch zuruckhaltend 23:11

Personnel:
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Bernard Haitink, conductor