Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Symphony no. 9 in D major

The BBC Symphony Orchestra opens its season at the Barbican on top form in Mahler's last completed symphony. 

Yoel Gamzou conducts a unique interpretation of Mahler's final completed symphony at the Bridgewater Hall. 

Kazuki Yamada and the CBSO give a poignant, haunting performance of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, foreshadowed by Takemitsu’s miniature Requiem. 

The RSNO's Mahler explorations continue with a Ninth Symphony that's haunted and shaken, but always full of life.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin pairs Mahler's weighty Ninth Symphony with Jake Heggie's Songs for Murdered Sisters, which considers the scourge of domestic violence against women.

Herbert Blomstedt returns to the Philharmonia for Mahler's great symphony of farewell. 

Franz Welser-Mӧst leads a performance that is stirring in its immediacy, if not always scrupulous in its attention to detail.

Sir Mark Elder begins his final season at the helm of The Hallé with a moving account of Mahler's Ninth Symphony at Bridgewater Hall that capturing every aspect of its epic voyage. 

Sir Simon Rattle ends his tenure as Music Director of the LSO with a cry for liberty and arguably the greatest of all farewell symphonies.

Fischer and the BFO's virtuosic musicians take the audience through the gamut of human emotions, but not always as a complete unit.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic soars in Mahler's profound Ninth Symphony, conducted by the legendary Michael Tilson Thomas.

Once in a while, a very great work gets the sort of live performance it deserves; such is the case in this concert by Jurowski and the LPO.

Visiting the Philharmonie de Paris, the Bavarian orchestra and their chief conductor deliver a legendary Mahler 9.

Myung-whun Chung and the orchestra provide a compelling account of Mahler's last completed symphony, albeit not one that hits the extremes.

Vasily Petrenko and the Oslo Philharmonic's Mahler Nine seemed unaware of what it wanted to be, resulting in a frustratingly directionless, disjointed concert.

Say what you like, Teodor Currentzis understands the music of Mahler, especially in that composer's final symphonic statement, to the manner born.

Mahler's farewell to the world emerged as a journey through stages of grief in a thrilling performance led by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. 

The Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel present Mahler’s Ninth Symphony as affirmation of life, rather than neurotic obsession over death. 

The Vienna Philharmonic perform Mahler’s Ninth Symphony at the Barbican, with deep and urgent commitment under Ádám Fischer.

Eighteen years ago Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain took a huge gamble by appointing the youthful local Yannick Néget- Séguin as its Music Director. Now, when the Maestro returns to conduct in his native city, a lovefest ensues.

Works by Alban Berg and Gustav Mahler recently heralded this year’s concert season in Zurich, where Artist in Residence Janine Jansen gave a superb performance. 

Peter Oundjian’s final concert as RSNO’s Music Director sums up his time with the orchestra perfectly. 

Sir Simon Rattle conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in Gustav Mahler’s last completed symphony, the enigmatic Ninth Symphony.  

Music director Franz Welser-Möst returned to conduct a recent work of Johannes Maria Staud that fit remarkably well with Mahler’s final completed symphony.

Supreme virtuosity and serene leadership from Bernard Haitink make for a moving night at the Philharmonie

Esa-Pekka Salonen brought maturity and experience to a searing account of Mahler’s last completed symphony with the Philharmonia Orchestra on its best form.

Bernard Haitink conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in a deeply moving account of Mahler's Ninth Symphony at the Barbican the day after the tragedy in Manchester.

The final note, marked “esterbend” (dying), possessed breathtaking fragility. Live in the concert hall, one cannot imagine it done better than this.

The multinational Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra proves that adolescence is no barrier to maturity in profound symphonic music making.

Bernard Haitink at the helm of the New York Philharmonic for a Mahler 9 without any sense of routine. 

A Mahler 9 with the Boston Symphony and Andris Nelsons is a testament to an ongoing collaboration which has deepened to the point that orchestra and conductor have become one.

The Israel Philharmonic's take on the work was initially hard to grasp. That was before we reached a glowing rendition of the Adagio, which was a hymn to life and a final farewell rolled into one.

The National Youth Orchestra with Sir Mark Elder at the helm ruminate over nothingness in this mature and moving performance of Mahler's Ninth.

Nikolay Khozyainov charms in a jolly rendition of Mozart's K467 while Gerhard Markson and NSO give a profound rendition of Mahler's Ninth Symphony.

Daniel Harding's daring, risky interpretation of Mahler's monumental Ninth Symphony pays off to give an emotionally draining, intense performance.

The impression left by the closing moments of the Mahler and the silence that followed will remain in the memory of this reviewer for some time to come.

Vaughan Williams Tallis Fantasia ravishes, but BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's Mahler Nine was unsettled as it was unsettling. 

The Hallé ended its season on a high with a magnificent performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony finding the horn section, in particular, on glorious form.

Nicholas Angelich's Mendelssohn Piano Concerto reaches places that Nézet-Séguin's and the LPO's Mahler Ninth at the Royal Festival Hall rarely touched. 

Amsterdam has an outstanding history for Mahler performances, but this fine Ninth from Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra lived up to all this history.

Perhaps the strongest aspect of Michael Tilson Thomas and Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s rendition of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony was their ability to heighten the piece’s contrasts, offering a vibrant depiction of the symphony’s raw emotional qualities.

So much myth has accreted to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony that it is difficult to know where to begin any more.

With the exception of the St Petersburg Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is the only one I can recall walking onto a silent, empty, Usher Hall stage en masse. I don't know why this feature should strike me so – perhaps mere schoolteacher overtones. The welcome was warm and sustained until all 115 members were in place for Mahler’s monumental Symphony no.

There are, speaking in broad generalisations, two main ways that Mahler’s Ninth Symphony is performed. One sees it as the composer’s farewell to life, an elegy that celebrates, fears, stands tall, and refuses to go quietly into the good night.

It was announced shortly before tonight's concert that the advertised conductor, the London Philharmonic's Principal Guest Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, was indisposed. In a programme which included Mahler's enormous Symphony no. 9, it was no small thing for Australian conductor Matthew Coorey to take over at short notice.

Rotterdam’s annual Gergiev Festival is a very popular classical festival in The Netherlands and with good reason, their programs are always excellent and the appearance of former chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Valery Gergiev usually attracts big crowds.

Mahler's Ninth Symphony – his last complete work in the genre – was written in 1908-9, against a backdrop of considerable personal tragedy and uncertainty.

Portée par des musiciens et un chef hautement inspirés, la Neuvième Symphonie de Mahler s'est transformée en expérience humaine, vitale, bouleversante.