Season set to close with Mahler meditation, 4. 5. at Rudolfinum
The 9th Symphony in D major was the last piece completed by Gustav Mahler. He wrote the meditational monologue, an inner farewell to life, in 1910, when he was living and working in New York. His steadily declining health and fears over his impending demise sparked a feeling of resignation in the composer. As if he sensed that he had only one year left to live.
Mahler did not live to see the Viennese premiere in June 1912, under the baton of Bruno Walter. A serious heart problem had forced him to give up conducting and return from overseas to Vienna, where he died in May 1911 shortly before he would have turned 51.
Mahler’s 9th Symphony is one of the most demanding symphonic works. The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra’s principal conductor Ondrej Lenárd, a passionate and dedicated interpreter of Mahler’s work, is a guarantee of a powerful listening experience.
