Mahler: Symphony No. 9

Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 in the full cycle from Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, one of Europe’s most historically resonant orchestras with a conductor internationally recognised for his structural command and interpretive integrity. The Orchestra occupies a distinctive place within Mahler’s geographical and cultural landscape – Mahler was born and brought up in Bohemia and completed his first symphony shortly after spending a year in Prague. Mahler symphonies have been central to Bychkov’s programming with the Czech Philharmonic since 2018 when he opened his tenure as Chief Conductor and Music Director with performances of Mahler Symphony No. 2

No. 9 in D Minor: nobody who had conducted Beethoven’s symphonies as regularly as Mahler could have been in any doubt of the eerie importance of the milestone. Couching his response in the same D minor – the key with which Mahler had also begun his curtain-raising First Symphony – he seemed to be preparing for a comparably summatory gesture. The existence of the torso of a Tenth Symphony may place doubt over whether the Ninth was, in fact, to be the final finale, though it still brings us face to face with what Theodor Reik described as the ‘last Mahler’, ‘the real one’, ‘he himself’. Scourged by time, undone by experience, he ‘no longer looks toward the balcony or the orchestra. The vision is straight ahead to see what is coming, what is so near, what is nearly here already, the end, the terror of the end.’

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Semyon Bychkov – conductor