Classical Music
Mahler Academy Orchestra / Philipp von Steinaecker
Friday, 18/09/2026 / 08:00 PM - 09:30 PM / Elbphilharmonie (Großer Saal)
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»It felt as though Gustav Mahler himself had briefly returned to the very building in which he once conducted this work several times,« enthused the newspaper Trouw about the Mahler Academy Orchestra’s ambitious historically informed performance project. Together with their director Philipp von Steinaecker, musicians from some of the world’s leading orchestras have joined forces to bring the original sound of Mahler’s monumental symphonies back to life.
To achieve this, they gather each year in Dobbiaco, where the composer sought inspiration for his late works, and approach the soundscape of the fin de siècle on period instruments. This season, they turn to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, his final completed major work before the so-called »curse of the ninth« struck him as well. Since Beethoven, the Ninth Symphony has been regarded as a composer’s final symphonic statement; like Mahler, Franz Schubert, Anton Bruckner and Antonín Dvořák never completed a tenth.
Mahler firmly believed in this curse and was, quite literally, terrified of death. Arnold Schoenberg also mythologised the idea: »Those who have written a Ninth stood too close to the beyond. Perhaps the riddles of this world would be solved if one of those who know them were to write a Tenth. And that is perhaps not meant to be.« Mahler, too, never reached that point – he died while working on sketches for his Symphony No. 10.
PERFORMERS
Mahler Academy Orchestra orchestra
Philipp von Steinaecker conductor
PROGRAM
Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 9
The concert takes place without an interval.
All statements without guarantee.
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