NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Thomas Hengelbrock

»Every farewell is difficult« – this banal saying turns into a deeply touching musical experience in the last symphony that Gustav Mahler completed. How much quiet and contemplation can a person take? Mahler takes an incredible amount of time expanding the main subject of the last movement ever further, before he finally lets it die away at an equally slow tempo. The subject so rigorously stretched here is a standard Romantic phrase: at one and the same time, Mahler writes a swan song for this style of the past, and also ushers in a new era. No wonder German philosopher Theodor Adorno once referred to Mahler’s Ninth as »the first work of contemporary music«. After the acclaimed performances at the Laeiszhalle in 2016, the Principal Conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra now brings the work to the Elbphilharmonie, thus continuing his Mahler cycle in the new concert hall.