Budapest Festival Orchestra: Mahler 9

Writing about Gustav Maher’s Ninth Symphony, the composer Alban Berg pulled no punches.

The first movement was, he declared, ‘the most glorious he ever wrote. It expresses an extraordinary love of the earth, for Nature.’

Mahler was consciously bidding a farewell, at least to life as he knew it.

Following the death of his daughter, Maria Anna, and facing serious heart disease himself, he was tempted to believe in the curse of the Ninth Symphony, several of his illustrious predecessors having died after writing their own ninths.

There is a valedictory quality to this music that is simultaneously tragic and life-affirming: a work unique in its power, wisdom and sincerity.

Leonard Bernstein found the piece ‘terrifying, and paralyzing ... in ceasing, we lose it all. But in letting go, we have gained everything.’