Mahler: Symphony No. 9 in D major

Introduction

The Symphony No. 9 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1908 and 1909, and was the last symphony that he completed. It is actually his tenth symphonic work, as Mahler gave no ordinal number (nor the title 'symphony') to his symphonic song-cycle Das Lied von der Erde. Though the work is often described as being in the key of D major, the tonal scheme of the symphony as a whole is progressive. While the opening movement is in D major, the finale is in D-flat major.

A typical performance takes about 75–90 minutes.

Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for the following orchestra:

• Woodwinds: piccolo, 4 flutes, 4 oboes (ob. 4 doubling cor anglais), E-flat clarinet, 3 clarinets in B-flat and A, bass clarinet, 4 bassoons (bsn. 4 doubling contrabassoon)

• Brass: 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba

• Percussion: timpani, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam, 3 bells, glockenspiel

• Strings: 2 harps, violins I & II, violas, violoncellos, double basses

Movements

The symphony is in four movements:

1. Andante (D major)comodo
2. Im Tempo eines gemächlichen Ländlers. Etwas täppisch und sehr derb (C major)
3. Rondo-Burleske: Allegro assai. Sehr trotzig (A minor)
4. Adagio. Sehr langsam und noch zurückhaltend (D-flat major)

Although the symphony has the traditional number of movements, it is unusual in that the first and last are slow rather than fast. As is often the case with Mahler, one of the middle movements is a ländler.

Views on and quotes about the Symphony

The enjoyment of Mahler's Ninth Symphony prompted the essayist Lewis Thomas to write the title essay in his Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony.

Many Mahler interpreters have been moved to speak with similar profundity about the work:

• It expresses an extraordinary love of the earth, for Nature. – Alban Berg

• It is music coming from another world, it is coming from eternity. – Herbert von Karajan

• It is terrifying, and paralyzing, as the strands of sound disintegrate ... in ceasing, we lose it all. But in letting go, we have gained everything. – Leonard Bernstein

• I believe it to be not only his last but also his greatest achievement. – Otto Klemperer

• [Mahler's] Ninth is most strange. In it, the author hardly speaks as an individual any longer. It almost seems as though this work must have a concealed author who used Mahler merely as his spokesman, as his mouthpiece. This symphony is no longer couched in the personal tone. It consists, so to speak, of objective, almost passionless [fast leidenschaftslose] statements of a beauty which becomes perceptible only to one who can dispense with animal warmth [animalische Wärme] and feels at home in spiritual coolness [geistiger Kühle]. – Arnold Schoenberg

Less favourable views include:

• Someday, some real friends of Mahler's will ... take a pruning knife and reduce his works to the length that they would have been if the composer had not stretched them out of shape; and then the great Mahler war will be over ... The Ninth Symphony would last about twenty minutes. – Deems Taylor