Luogo e data di registrazione		Herkules-Saal, München (Germania) - febbraio & marzo 1967
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Executive Producer		Otto Gerdes
	Artistic Supervision		Hans Weber
	Recording Engineer		Heinz Wildhagen
	Prima Edizione LP		Deutsche Grammophon - 2707 038 - (2 LP's) - durata 41' 58" & 35' 03" - (p) 1967 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		Deutsche Grammophon - 429 042-2 - (10 CD's - 10°) - (c) 1989 - ADD
	Note		Illustration auf der Taschenvorderseite: "Die Erwartung", Gemälde von Gustav Klimt )Entwurf zum Stoclet-Fries, Ausschnitt), Österreichische Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Wien

The 9th Symphony, Mahlet’s last completed work, dates from the summer of 1909, and it forms a link between romantic.and modern music. The customary symphonic layout is abandoned; two slow movements enclose two scherzo-like interludes. None of the movements ate in traditional sonata form: in the first movement the variation principle outweighs the rudiments of sonata form, the second movement is a succession of dance themes, while the third and fourth are fashioned as rondos. There is no longer any harmonic common denominator: the Symphony begins in D major and ends in D flat major, while the interludes are in C major and in Mahler’s tragic key of A minor. The symphonic texture is no longer governed by the vertical, harmonic principle but by the linear, horizontal shaping of independent instrumental voices, resulting in sounds and clashes which suggest early Schoenberg. The instrumentation follows this free polyphony in a wholly unorthodox manner; there ate tonal mixtures of highly expressive originality, audacious overlappings and exciting new combinations of sounds. The Ninth has its roots in the 19th century, but its most significant features point forward to modern developments. Mahler dreaded the ominous number nine in connection with symphonies, owing to the fact that Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner had all died after writing their ninth symphonies. Mahler gave his own real ninth, the vocal Symphony after Chinese texts, the oratorio-like title “The Song of the Earth”. The mood of farewell at the end of this vocal work leads to the sense of resignation which is the basic characteristic of the Ninth Symphony. Certain note sequences and motives from “The Song of the Earth” reappear in veiled forms, pointing to the inner connection between the two works. Bruno Walter, who conducted the world premiéres of both of them after Mahler’s death, was the first person to point out the relationship which exists between them, with the Ninth carrying forward and enhancing the basic themes of ““The Song of the Earth”’: farewell, resignation, and death. The first movement, an Andante comodo in D major, flows as a single, broad stream of sound, and is basically a vast melodic arch-extending over 60 pages of score. The principal melody in the major, which begins at bar 6, bears the entire weight of the movements’ diverse structure; it is varied rather than developed in the academic sense, a veiled variant in the minor forming the second subject. The principal theme rises to climaxes and undergoes compression, is recapitulated, and leads to a Coda which dies softly away. Elements of sonata form and of the variation principle are interwoven. Adorno sees in the Andante an “‘all-embracing antithesis”; question and answer ate intermingled. “The instrumental voices vie with one another as though each were trying to dominate and outbid the others; hence the limitless expressiveness of this piece, and its resemblance to speech. The themes are neither active nor passive, but arise as though, while speaking, the music receives fresh impulses which prompt it to speak further.” The second movement begins in C major, “In the tempo of a relaxed landler”’. From the outset the atmosphere of a dance of death lies over this Scherzo based on the technique of development. Its second thematic group is a quick Waltz in E major, and its third part introduces a slow landler in F major. The Development-like middle section transforms the Waltz, interrupted by reminiscences of the other thematic groups. As a kind of Recapitulation the first landler returns, interspersed by motives from the other themes. The strangeness of this montage of dance tunes is underlined by bizarre instrumentation: the second violins pound out the C major theme “clumsily, like peasant fiddles’’, trombones introduce an ominous element into the Waltz, and intentionally crude, vulgar turns of phrase are churned out sarcastically, until the orchestra sounds like an enormous barrelorgan. Mahlet’s witches’ sabbath. The thematic germs of the third movement shoot up “very defiantly” from the strings and brass; this Rondo-Burlesque in A minor is dedicated with bitter irony “to my Apollonian brothers”. “This piece, too, is a backward glance over the composet’s life with its preoccupations, in which the song of creative endeavour re-echoes as something grotesquely distorted. The artist is mocking himself. This is biting contempt for the world, but it is born of profound tragedy” (Paul Bekker). The Development-like transformations of the subject matter lead into a brusque fugato. A further section, marked “with great feeling” and in the D major tonality in which the Symphony opened, is a lyrical passage for the violins, already pointing forward thematically to the great songlike theme of the Finale. A repetition of the first subject culminates in a demoniac stretta. Extented to gigantic stature by augmentation, its sforzati, wind trills and emphatic grace notes create the atmosphere of the “Drinking song of Earth’s sadness ”’from “The Song of the Earth” - a harsh vision of annihilation. The concluding Adagio in D flat major, which begins after a short, impassioned recitative as a sonorous song of the strings, heightens the atmosphere of the first movement to the level of the sublime. Twice the song is interrupted as in a rondo, by episodes whose contrapuntal texture derives from the bassoon theme which has intruded like a sombre exclamation after the D flat major cantilena. The principal theme, in which Schubert seems to encounter “Tristan”, forms the basis of the final melody, which is woven “with inward feeling” upon the D flat major chord of the strings, dying away “ppp”. A release from earthly things, farewell, and transfiguration. Mahler’s Ninth Symphony concludes with tranquil harmonies; his Tenth remained incomplete. Barely two years later Mahler succumbed to a heart disease. In 1912, a year after Mahler’s death, Bruno Walter conducted the world premiére of the Ninth Symphony in Vienna. Karl Schumann