Mahler would probably have been amazed to discover just how much importance his Ninth Symphony, a work he never even heard, has come to bear not just in an assessment of his own work but, increasingly, in that of western music as a whole. Musicians speak of it in hushed tones as the ultimate valedictory masterpiece and it tends to occupy a place of central significance in an orchestra’s concert season. Its unflinching depiction of death and mortality has come to represent the end not only of the composer, but of an entire civilisation of western culture teetering on the brink of annihilation in the teeth of the First World War.
The astonishing thing is that, despite all this weight of expectation, the symphony tends to hold up again and again with each new experience of hearing it. This performance served it admirably. Thomas Søndergård and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra have played a lot of Mahler cycle in recent years, so they’re a known quantity in his music. Søndergård has repeatedly shown himself to be an expert not only in shaping Mahler’s great musical paragraphs but in bringing the orchestra with him, crafting sound that is nuanced and precise rather than merely swept up in the overall impact. That was evident in the huge opening movement, which Søndergård controlled with enormous care, the first entries tentative and faltering in advance of a severe swerve into the path of the minor key storm. As the drama developed each musical mood swing became ever more severe, but a steady flow of energy motivated every forward movement: this was music that was determined to make the most of life rather than merely wait around for death.
The orchestral playing matched each nuance, most obviously from the violins, whose opening was full of blithe simplicity and innocence, almost naivety, but later this was lost to muted shuddering during the haunted central section, over which baleful brass presided like a malevolent force.
Every so often, I found myself wanting just a little bit more from them. This was a Mahler 9 which teetered on the abyss, but didn’t plunge in. The climax at the start of the funeral march, for example, could have been more rafter-shaking, and while the Ländler had a winningly gauche waddle to it, its Trio section didn’t have quite enough of a sense of careering out of control, of unstoppable force. Likewise, the bite of the Rondo was slightly muzzled, played enormously impressively but never with a sense that this was music that was about to engulf us.
These seemed like small things next to the all-embracing warmth of the strings in the final Adagio, however, or the haunting woodwind-led threnody in its central section, let alone the gleaming confidence of the horn solos. And the final bars were expertly judged, played with such delicacy and paced with such care that the audience seemed to hold its collective heart in its mouth. For the second time in a week, after last week’s Pathetique Symphony, the RSNO ended their concert with a death-haunted slow movement where the final silence seemed to speak every bit as eloquently as the music itself. Breaking the spell with applause felt like a crime, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay any piece.
