Symphony No. 9

Cellos begin a halting rhythm, pp, and a horn completes it, first stopped and then marked offen (Echo). The harp plays at f. A double bass holds a harmonic and the violas begin a rocking figure.

At rehearsal 1 the second violins begin a melody in short segments separated by rests, with falling two-note figures. Divided violas play sextuplets beneath it, and cellos and basses play pizzicato.

On 16 January 1938 in Vienna, Bruno Walter conducted the orchestra that had given the first performance of the Ninth under him in June 1912, in the same Musikverein hall. Mahler never heard the symphony. He had died a year before the première.

After only a few minutes the music moves into the minor for a darker, impassioned passage. It is short. A quasi-fanfare in the trumpets brings back the opening material in heightened form.

Every movement of the Ninth is built on a falling second, from the third to the second step of the scale. These are the first two notes of Beethoven’s Das Lebewohl Sonata, Op. 81a. In 1875 Mahler’s father allowed his fifteen-year-old son to study in Vienna after the boy had played that sonata.

The exposition ends on a chord for the full orchestra. The sound then dies away over a timpani roll that falls from ff to pp.

Tempo I subito (aber nicht schleppend): the first tempo returns, without dragging. Muted horns and trombones play motives from the opening bars over a timpani roll, pp. The lyrical melody is heard only in fragments.

The producer Fred Gaisberg sat near the timpani, facing Walter. Two machines took turns cutting the performance into wax, one recording while the other was reloaded. A musician sat beside the engineer and followed the full score so that the joins stayed clear of the music.

At bar 148 the violins play a tune quoting Johann Strauss’s waltz Freuet euch des Lebens. Strauss wrote it in 1870 for the opening ball of the Musikverein’s new golden hall, in the building that housed the Conservatory where Mahler studied. The quotation returns at bars 267–⁠271 and 436ff.

Muted trumpets play triplet figures p. A crescendo follows, with timpani rolls, trills in the second violins and horns marked gestopft rising to fff. At Mit Wut the full orchestra enters.

At rehearsal 9 Mahler marks the score Mit Wut (with rage) and Allegro risoluto, not too fast. The horns are marked immer gestopft, always stopped, and play beside open trumpets while the strings move in dissonant counterpoint.

A cymbal stroke, swells in the harps and a horn line carry the music to a dissonant climax. At rehearsal 11 the key signature changes to E♭ major. Rapid chromatic runs descend through violas, cellos and basses, marked ff with a diminuendo.

Mahler marks the passage Schattenhaft, “shadowy”. The horns play above muted trombones, and the violas, cellos and basses play sextuplets at ppp. At Allmählich an Ton gewinnend (gradually gaining in tone) the lyrical tune returns in D major.

In the draft, above the most prominent quotation of the Strauss waltz (bars 267–⁠271), Mahler wrote into the score: “O Jugendzeit! Entschwundene! O Liebe! Verwehte!” (Oh, days of youth, vanished; oh, love, scattered on the wind.)

In a letter to his wife, written in 1923 or later, Alban Berg described the whole movement as “a presentiment of death”. It “appears again and again”, he wrote, and “all that is earthly and dreamy culminates in it”.

The score is marked Stringendo just before this point. Trombones and tuba, bells raised, play a dissonance marked fff (mit höchster Gewalt) (with the greatest force) together with the timpani. Woodwinds and strings play rapid descending figures.

The blow leads into a march marked Wie ein schwerer Kondukt (like a heavy funeral procession), played over a timpani ostinato. Three deep bells join the timpani.

Leonard Bernstein heard Mahler’s irregular heartbeat in the opening rhythm. The rhythm returns throughout the movement. At the climax the trombones and tuba play it mit höchster Gewalt, with the greatest force.

At Plötzlich bedeutend langsamer (Lento) und leise, Misterioso, the tempo slows sharply and the dynamic drops. Piccolo, flute, oboes and a solo violin play separate lines, which commentators have described as birdcalls.

Schon ganz langsam — already very slow. A horn, marked molto espr. and sehr weich hervortretend — very softly to the fore — plays in D major. Harp arpeggios rise beneath held wind chords, and the strings thin out to a few notes.

The closing melody passes to a solo violin, marked schmeichelnd (coaxing) and later dolciss. The harp ascends, and horns and woodwinds play softly. In the last bar, marked Zögernd, the strings play pizzicato harmonics on the G string, pp, under a fermata.

Bassoons and violas play a quick upbeat, and the clarinets follow. The second violins then bring in the Ländler, a country dance. Mahler marks the page Etwas täppisch und sehr derb (somewhat clumsy and very coarse) and asks the violins to play wie Fiedeln, like fiddles.

The tempo quickens at Poco più mosso subito (Tempo II), and a waltz enters in four sharps. It is louder, with the weight on the downbeat. The sigh-shaped melodic lines of the first movement are still present, and the chromaticism and dissonance increase.

For a few bars among the dances, the movement quotes the scherzo of Mahler’s Second Symphony, his orchestral version of St Anthony’s sermon to the fish.

Fred Gaisberg later admitted that rehearsing this Ländler movement for the recording had been a time-consuming trial. He had arranged five rehearsals before the concert so that his engineers could test their equipment.

After a long Molto riten. a solo bassoon leads into Tempo III (Ländler, ganz langsam), a very slow dance. It keeps the sigh figures of the faster dances. Basinger noted that the reduced speed and the added triangle lighten the atmosphere.

The waltz returns, reharmonised and varied. At rehearsal 22 the key signature is two sharps. The strings alternate plucked and bowed notes, and the woodwinds add turns to the tune.

At the Vienna festival in June 1912, Walter gave the first performance of Mahler’s Ninth. The festival also included two older Ninths: Beethoven’s, conducted by Felix Weingartner, and Bruckner’s, under Arthur Nikisch.

Two bassoons play the opening upbeat. The Ländler returns in a solo second violin and a solo viola, with the other violas pizzicato beneath.

Walter’s 1938 performance lasts about seventy minutes. That is close to the “hour and thirteen minutes actual playing length” of the première in 1912, and eleven minutes shorter than his stereo recording of 1961.

The first tempo returns abruptly, and the Ländler resumes with uncharacteristically heavy accents. These soon lighten, and the dance breaks into fragments.

Bruno Walter wrote of this movement in 1936: “A tragic undertone sounds in the joy and one feels that ‘the dance is over’.”

The coda opens with muted instruments at pianissimo. Short fragments of the Ländler appear and then drop out, one instrument at a time.

Under the marking Nicht eilen bis zum Schluss (don’t hurry to the end), piccolo and contrabassoon, at opposite ends of the orchestra’s range, share the opening upbeat at pp. The strings close the movement with a pizzicato chord.

The first trumpet plays a short figure alone in the first bar, and Mahler marks the movement Allegro assai. Sehr trotzig (very defiant). Strings follow with jagged figures, and horns and woodwinds add short figures of their own. The violins then take up the main melody at ff.

Mahler dedicated the movement, derisively, “to my brothers in Apollo”, meaning his fellow disciples of the god of music.

The first episode has reduced scoring, softer dynamics and one flat in the key signature, and its melodic lines draw on the style of operetta. The refrain’s dissonance continues underneath.

This performance took place in January 1938. Two months later Nazi Germany annexed Austria. Walter, already driven from Germany because he was Jewish, had to leave his adopted country too, and Mahler’s music disappeared from its concert programmes.

The muted first trumpet plays twice, ff with an immediate diminuendo. Under it the triangle holds a roll with a crescendo, and the violins play repeated notes.

In 1936 Bruno Walter described this movement as “defiantly agitated” and called it the “most striking proof” of Mahler’s contrapuntal mastery.

A cymbal stroke halts the fugue. Brass chords play a dissonant chorale, and at Etwas gehalten the music moves to D major. A solo trumpet, marked p subito poco espressivo, plays a melody built on turn figures over string tremolo; the turn motive returns in the finale’s main melody.

A few weeks after the concert, Fred Gaisberg met Walter in Paris to play him the test pressings. Gaisberg described Walter as “a bewildered refugee”. Walter was “so delighted” with the results that his “usually sober face brightened up considerably”.

Fragments of the rondo return several times within the song. Each time a harp glissando cuts them off, and the violins are left playing am Steg, near the bridge, in divided parts.

The music darkens. The oboe, followed by other instruments, repeatedly plays the lyrical melody, but in the end the orchestra does not take it up, and fragments of the rondo return.

The closing pages are marked Più stretto, then Presto. Winds, brass and strings repeat the short figures of the opening with heavy accents. The movement ends on short, sharp attacks like those at its start.

Both violin sections begin in unison, f lang gezogen, with a rising leap and a falling phrase. Violas, divided cellos and basses then enter p molto espress. The melody takes in the turn motive from the Rondo-⁠Burleske.

Commentators hear the hymn tune Eventide, “Abide with Me”, in the opening theme. Later in the theme there is a brief reference to a phrase from Urlicht, which there sets the words “Je lieber möcht’ ich im Himmel sein” (I would rather be in heaven).

The strings stop and leave one note held in the first violin, marked p subito and morendo. Far below it, a solo bassoon marked pp langsam climbs slowly upwards. This short, thinly scored passage returns several times between the fuller statements of the hymn.

The movement’s hymn incorporates a direct quotation from the middle section of the Rondo-⁠Burleske. Here the quoted material becomes an elegy and fits within the hymn’s falling phrases.

Mahler marks the passage Plötzlich wieder langsam (wie zu Anfang) und etwas zögernd: suddenly slow again, as at the start, and a little hesitant. Contrabassoon and cellos play the bassoon’s rising line far below. The violins, in their highest register, play pp ohne Empfindung (without feeling).

In May 2009 Reinhold Kubik described this twenty-minute finale as a review of Mahler’s own music in slow motion. He heard echoes of Urlicht, Ablösung im Sommer, the scherzo of the Third, Der Abschied and Oft denk’ ich, and wrote that a circle appeared to be closing.

The interlude moves forward at Pesante, and a rit. leads to a tempo (Molto adagio) in five flats. The hymn returns with a horn, and the violins and violas are marked stets breitester Strich (always the broadest stroke).

At the end of his fifth Norton lecture, Leonard Bernstein suggested that the whole movement prophesies three deaths. He named Mahler’s own, the death of tonality and the death of “Faustian” culture in all the arts.

In his 1936 book on Mahler, Bruno Walter described this finale as “like the melting of a cloud in the ethereal blue”. He conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the performance heard here, recorded on 16 January 1938.

The return of the B section opens with interlocking lines in the high woodwinds that refer to Der Abschied, the farewell that closes Das Lied von der Erde. Below them the ascending bassoon idea returns, now without its earlier bleakness.

The woodwinds are marked dim. and morendo. Above them the first violins hold a high note at ppp, and the English horn plays a phrase marked espr. Soon only the strings remain, marked ersterbend (dying away).

Muted second violins begin a short rising phrase, and the other strings follow with fragments separated by long rests. The fragments are reduced to a turn, a falling step or a single held note.

On the last page of the draft Mahler wrote words above the music. First came “O Schönheit! Liebe!”, then “Lebt wol! Lebt wol!” and, over the final pianissimo, “Welt! Lebe wohl!” (World, farewell). He signed off the draft at Toblach in the first days of September 1909.

On the closing pages the first violins quote the Kindertotenlieder with the line “Der Tag ist schön auf jenen Höh’n” (the day is fine on yonder heights). The last note is marked ersterbend, dying away.

On the last page the second violins and lower strings play stets mit Dämpfer, always muted, and the first violins play without a mute. Mahler writes Langsam und ppp bis zum Schluss, then Äusserst langsam and pppp. Under the final fermata he writes ersterbend, dying away.