Friday, May 29, 2026
Berwaldhallen, Dag Hammarskjölds väg 3, Stockholm
Breaking into his six-month sabbatical, Alan Gilbert replaced Herbert Blomstedt with reverence to him, Gilbert’s view of Mahler’s final completed Symphony rather different to Blomstedt’s recent Detroit concert, below; however both agree that violins should be antiphonal with the basses positioned to the left (behind the first violins), and, anyway, it’s the seconds and the violas that get the work started. From Gilbert the first movement was vivid and volatile at a suitably accommodating (the marked comodo) tempo; the second of rough and tumble as the dance contest heats up; followed by a ‘Rondo-Burleske’ of total rhythmic obliqueness contrasted by lingering ethereal contrasts, those latter pointing to the slow Finale, here very spacious, far-reaching in transcendentalism, and also diminution, to a haunting void of silence, asking the inevitable question: Where next? Unanswered.