[SACD-R][OF] Mahler - Symphony No. 9 {Eliahu Inbal & Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra} - 2014 (Classical)

Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra
Eliahu Inbal - conductor
Recorded at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Yokohama Minato - Mirai Hall on March 15-17, 2014.

The Symphony No. 9 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1908 and 1909, and was the last symphony that he completed. A typical performance takes about 75 to 90 minutes. A survey of conductors voted Mahler's Symphony No. 9 the fourth greatest symphony of all time in a ballot conducted by BBC Music Magazine in 2016. Like his earlier Das Lied von der Erde, Mahler did not live to see his Symphony No. 9 performed.
Though the work is often described as being in the key of D major, the tonal scheme of the symphony as a whole is progressive. While the opening movement is in D major, the finale is in D♭ major.
Although the symphony has the traditional number of movements, it is unusual in that the first and last are slow rather than fast. As is often the case with Mahler, one of the middle movements is a ländler.
Mahler died in May 1911, without ever hearing his Ninth Symphony performed. The work's ending is usually interpreted as his conscious farewell to the world, as it was composed following the death of his beloved daughter Maria Anna in 1907 and the diagnosis of his fatal heart disease. However, this notion is disputed inasmuch as Mahler felt that he was in good health at the time of the composition of the Ninth Symphony; he had had a very successful season (1909–10) as the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and, before that, the Metropolitan Opera (New York). In his last letters, Mahler indicated that he was looking forward to an extensive tour with the orchestra for the 1910–11 season. Moreover, Mahler worked on his unfinished Tenth Symphony until his death from endocarditis in May 1911.
Mahler was a superstitious man and believed in the so-called curse of the ninth, which he thought had already killed Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner; this is proven by the fact that he refused to number his previous work Das Lied von der Erde as his ninth symphony, although it is often considered a symphony.