Mozart and Mahler

Garry Walker conducts a pair of remarkable symphonies written 120 years apart.

Mahler’s Ninth (and final complete) Symphony is the ultimate farewell from a composer who was truly a master of a seismic symphony! The music is peppered with allusions to the ‘great beyond’. Described by fellow composer Alban Berg as ‘the greatest symphony Mahler ever wrote’, the famous opening movement is built from a theme said to represent the arrhythmic heartbeat of the composer, while the last, gasping notes of the finale are marked ‘dying away’. But the symphony is much more than a funeral procession. Dynamic, pulsing and infinitely colourful, it hums with a thirst for life, particularly in the two central movements. ‘It is the expression of a tremendous love for this earth,’ continued Berg, ‘the longing to live on it peacefully and to enjoy nature to its deepest depths – before death comes.’

Opening the concert is Mozart’s ‘Linz’ Symphony, one of the composer’s sunniest works. Written in an extraordinary outpouring of creativity in just four days, there is no hint of artistic compromise. It seems that whenever Mozart wrote quickly, it enhanced the quality of his output. This is indeed one of his finest symphonies, a light contrast to the Ninth Symphony by Mahler, who was himself a huge exponent of Mozart’s work.

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