Symphony No. 9

Composer: MAHLER, Gustav
  • Mahler began work on this symphony in 1908, and he did further work on it during the summer of 1909. In the autumn of that year, Mahler would begin a season conducting the New York Philharmonic (1909-1910).1
  • This was Mahler’s last completed symphony.2
  • This symphony premiered in Vienna on June 26, 1912.3 This performance took place at the Vienna Festival; Bruno Walter conducted the Vienna Philharmonic. Mahler never conducted thus symphony, and he did not live to see its premiere.4
  • Like many of Mahler’s works, this piece includes self-quotation. At the end of the Adagio, Mahler quotes a song from Kindertotenlieder: the original musical phrase is paired with the text, “The day is beautiful on those heights.”5
  • This page, from the Mahler Foundation, includes interesting quotations from Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Bernstein, and others about Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. 

Sources

  1. Peter Franklin, “Mahler, Gustav,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed March 24, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040696.
  2. “Introduction Symphony No. 9,” The Mahler Foundation, accessed March 24, 2022, https://mahlerfoundation.org/mahler/compositions/symphony-no-9/symphony-no-9-introduction/.
  3. Franklin, “Mahler, Gustav,” Grove Music Online
  4. “Symphony No. 9,” Mahler Foundation, accessed March 24, 2022, https://mahlerfoundation.org/mahler/compositions/symphony-no-9/.
  5. Franklin, “Mahler, Gustav,” Grove Music Online

Cut IDs

15471 22884 49214