Mahler - Symphony No. 9 | Michael Tilson Thomas | New World Symphony (2018)

Описание: Witness magic as ‪@michaeltilsonthomas‬ explores Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, a tortured swan song to love, society and life itself.

Mahler’s Ninth Symphony is awash with suggestions of death, but it is hardly alone in that regard among his works. The Second Symphony took its nickname from an earlier song Mahler adapted for the last movement, Resurrection, and the three hammer strikes of the “Tragic” Sixth Symphony represented a premonition, according to Alma Mahler, of the three tragedies of 1907, including their daughter’s death. To treat the Ninth Symphony as some sort of deathbed confession would be an oversimplification, since Mahler was in relatively good health and spirits at the time he wrote it. Still, the diagnosis of his heart condition had brought his mortality uncomfortably close and the fateful numbering of a Symphony No. 9 had a resonance that could not be ignored.

The strongest sign of Mahler’s leave-taking comes in the form of a quotation. In several places—most prominently in the heart-wrenching tune of the Adagio finale—Mahler incorporated the gesture of three notes descending stepwise. This motive matches the opening melody of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 26, “Les Adieux” (“The Farewell”), composed in honor of an absent patron. In the score, Beethoven wrote the German word for farewell, Lebewohl, over those three notes; in Mahler’s symphony, each recurrence of the motive seems to recall that wistful word.

-- Copyright © 2018 Aaron Grad

Originally performed May 5, 2018.

#mahler #symphony #orchestra #mttmusic

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