Mahler – Symphony 9
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski
LPO LPO-0139 (lpo.org.uk/recording/mahler-nine)
No composer ever expressed more turbulent inner demons in his music than Gustav Mahler. In his last completed symphony, the Ninth, he even confronted his own mortality, having been diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition.
The symphony’s hesitant opening phrases, likened by Leonard Bernstein to Mahler’s irregular heartbeat, lead to nearly half-an-hour of musical angst, struggle, nostalgia and cataclysmic fortissimo climaxes before ending with serene resignation. The second movement sardonically parodies ländler folk dances using “wrong notes” and heavy-footed accents. The following Rondo-Burleske frames longing lyricism with music of angry aggression.
The extended Adagio has been called “a foreshadowing of eternity,” its tormented dissonances dissolving into a profoundly moving evocation of transfiguration, comparable to the sublime Adagios of two other Ninths, those by Beethoven and Bruckner.The extraordinarily drawn out closing minutes have always suggested to me a long series of faltering heartbeats, inexorably diminishing until the symphony’s final note, marked “ersterbend” (dying).
On December 3, 2022, Vladimir Jurowski returned to London’s Royal Festival Hall to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra, having served as its principal conductor from 2007 to 2021. In this “live” performance, Jurowski combined intense energy with generous rubatos, drawing superbly balanced, massive sonorities from Mahler’s huge orchestra, including an immense string section – 18 first violins, 16 seconds, 14 violas, 12 cellos and 10 double-basses – while carefully spotlighting the many beautifully played woodwind and brass solos. Bravi Jurowsky and the LPO!
