Spotlight Mahler: The Ninth Symphony

“Coming to the end of this symphony is one of the hardest tasks in all conducting.”
Herbert von Karajan

It is a well-known fact that Karajan’s engagemant with Mahler was an episode. Unlike other great symphonic composers, Mahler wasn’t regularly on Karajan’s programmes until his last years. Karajan conducted “Das Lied von der Erde” for the centenary in 1960 but neglected Mahler during the following decade. The “Mahler Years” were between 1970 (when Karajan performed “Das Lied von der Erde” again) and 1982 (his last ever Mahler performance). During these years, he added the symphonies Nr. 4,5,6 and 9 to his repertoire, ending with Mahler’s last completed symphony. It is remarkable that Karajan’s Mahler interpretations have aroused very different responses. Some of his critics praised them as a pleasant surprise, whereas his fans often were disappointed. The Ninth was definitely Karajan’s greatest success as a Mahler conductor. He even won prizes for his recordings – a fact that happened quite rarely. Recordings? Yes. Mahler’s Ninth is the unique case of a work that Karajan recorded in the studio but also published as a live recording for Deutsche Grammophon two years later.

Karajan’s biographer Peter Uehling quotes an interview by Felix Schmidt from 1984. Karajan said about his approach:

“When I started on Mahlers Ninth, the orchestra and I simply did four reading rehearsals. Just reading the score [which means: playing but not rehearsing (Uehling)]. Then we put the work aside, then we went back on it, then we did the first rehearsals. Altogether, we rehearsed 70 hours and afterwards, we had this veiled sound that I was after.”

In 1983, when Karajan’s commitment with Mahler’s Ninth was already history, he told his biographer Ernst Haeusserman:

“The recording of the Ninth Symphony, which has been a fine success, took a long time. First, we make a record just to recognize the problems. This is far from perfect. Then I study it for myself and compare it with the vision I had when I read the score. Only after a long time does it start developing in you. It has to rest first and then you start on a very precise score. You start conducting it in concert, on tour, and this is what you had imagined as a result. […] When I studied in Vienna all the students grew up with Mahler. It was our daily bread. Remember, Bruno Walter conducted there, Oscar Fried, Klemperer – they played a lot of Mahler. It was very familiar for us. But we had to wait for the right moment to put it into practice. My recent studies with Mahler took two-and-a-half years. It gave me enormous pleasure and satisfaction.”

Six years later, he told Richard Osborne: “In the Ninth there is great beauty and a sense of harmony with death. Coming to the end of this symphony is one of the hardest tasks in all conducting.” Osborne asked him, why in this special case he added an alternative live recording in Berlin two years after the studio recording. Karajan answered: “With the CD we had the feeling that if there was no noise in the hall we could have an even better result.” Osborne recalled that the concert in Salzburg in April 1982 had affected him so deeply that he had to cancel a table he had booked in a restaurant afterwards. Karajan: “I know, it was the same with me. This kind of thing happens once in a lifetime.”

The symphony was performed in only nine concerts, all of them in 1982 and all of them with the Berlin Philharmonic. Roger Vaughan witnessed the 23 October in New York Carnegie Hall: “After the last bars of Mahler’s dolorous work, the applause was so enormous that one could have been worried that the famous Circle of Lights would burst. Karajan enjoyed the enthusiastic applause. Over and over again, he walked the exhausting way to the rostrum. He stood there without moving as if he would welcome a cloudburst during a heat wave. Again, he shook hands with his concertmaster and his soloists. Again, the orchestra stood up when the applause swelled. It was a very special moment, a triumph.”

A week later, in Pasadena, Karajan conducted Mahler’s Ninth for the last time. He told Osborne:

“I was madly, madly involved with the symphony to the extent that when it was done – and it is one of the few works I say this of – I would not dare touch it again.”

—  P.R. Jenkins