BBC Philharmonic – Mahler Symphony No. 9

Mark Wigglesworth conductor

Britten Sinfonia da Requiem
Mahler Symphony No. 9

‘I’m going to make it just as anti-war as possible’ – the words of Benjamin Britten about his new work in 1940, a wordless requiem for orchestra. What he created was one of the most taut and direct pacifist artistic statements ever created. Sinfonia da Requiem is as arresting and powerful today as it was at the start of World War II.

As Gustav Mahler began his Ninth Symphony, he was fully aware of its portent. Like Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner before him, his Ninth was to be the last he finished Mahler knew about his heart defect which would prove fatal. This most epic of symphonies is one last, glorious journey, from the faltering opening to Mahler’s own dance of death, the Rondo-Burleske. There’s something else which courses through the veins of the Ninth: a quotation from a waltz by Johann Strauss. It’s called ‘Enjoy Life’.