Mahler Festival: Kirill Petrenko and the Berliner Philharmoniker: Symphony No. 9

Kirill Petrenko and the Berliner Philharmoniker

One of the world's most legendary orchestras, the Berliner Philharmoniker, has been led by Kirill Petrenko for several years. Upon his appointment, Die Welt called him 'the world's most unknown famous conductor'. Petrenko hardly ever gives interviews, so he can totally focus on the music. Today, that music comes from a man who once also conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker: Gustav Mahler. You will hear the Ninth Symphony.

Mahler's Symphony No. 9

'Youth gone, love blown away', Mahler noted in the score of his Ninth Symphony. Like no other work in his 'small family' of symphonies, the Ninth treats extremes. It is a farewell to life, but at the same time an ode to its beauty. Presence, absence, even of sounds: Mahler plays with them, with picture-perfect results. Sometimes called the 'completion of Romanticism', the symphony was the last one Mahler would complete.