Many commentators agree that Mahler's Symphony no. 9 is the composer's most complete piece of self-expression (and indeed his most complete expression of humanity, nature and the supernatural realm in their entireties). Thereafter, interpretations have varied markedly. Leonard Bernstein conceived of the work, among other things, as a premonition of World War I. Writer and physicist Lewis Thomas thought of it as a depiction of the end of the world in the age of nuclear weapons. But, for Alban Berg, Mahler's Ninth was “a tremendous love for this earth, and the longing to live on it peacefully”. In the hands of Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, which had pulled in at La Scala as part of its European tour, the work corresponded most closely to the latter conception.
Jansons has said that he enters Paradise whenever he conducts Mahler's Ninth, and this was indeed a performance that gravitated towards the paradisical. Astringent hard edges were sanded down, particularly in the musically varied first movement. Contributions from brass instruments more often melted than snarled. When shivering strings cast a cloud over the music, they were briskly swept aside by thawing horns. The sunny atmosphere that would prevail throughout was established in the gently swaying motifs that open the work.
An underlying sense of unity ran through this performance, as if individual movements were spun out in one huge legato. Climaxes grew slowly, almost imperceptibly, from more introspective passages. Tempi were flexible, and joins between sections managed with the slightest of rallentandi. Accompanying forward momentum kept things dynamic, and, simultaneously, provided a sense of coherence and cohesion. Jansons' eyes seemed to be fixed on the final movement.