Prague 1908: Mahler with Bruno Walter (right) who conducted the posthumous premiere of the Ninth Symphony on June 26, 1912, in Vienna (a 1938 Walter account from there survives). Later, for CBS, Walter recorded it with the Columbia Symphony…
Thursday, May 15, 2025
Berliner Philharmonie, Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, Berlin
Complementing Sakari Oramo’s recent Mahler concert (including one of the finest accounts of Das Lied von der Erde I am ever going to hear), Kirill Petrenko conducted a Ninth Symphony packed with musical and emotional incident. Like Oramo, Petrenko had the violins antiphonally disposed (basses left this time) for a performance ‘way up there’, the first movement of solemn tread, resignation, and volatile upheavals, the pacing flexible, the soul-baring intense and deeply felt, carefully crafted yet ‘of the moment’, tender intimacies annihilated by powerhouse fortissimos (fierce timpani strokes suggesting Mahler’s weakened yet attacking heart) reposted by exquisite solos of resignation … but life goes on, the second movement of wild contrasts of tempo and mood, of dances in competition, the orchestra pristine with detailing. The ‘Rondo-Burleske’ leapt off the page with savage irony, and at what speed, Petrenko uncompromising with his demands for contrapuntal clarity, the playing super-virtuosic, the midpoint an ethereal haven, the return of the opening music driven, and where it’s supposed to get even faster, it did, demonically, bowing-arms, fingers and lips required to be beyond the call of duty. Petrenko, having smiled his appreciation, waited awhile before starting the Finale. which could have been a broader Adagio than this, lacking the contemplation it might have had, certainly within the overall reading, if reminding that Mahler intended a Tenth Symphony, yet the pared-down textures of the last few minutes (out of eighty) were haunting.