London Philharmonic Orchestra & Vladimir Jurowski

Writing a new symphony after an eighth has made many a composer wince. Many did not want to overtake Beethoven, and saw it as a death sentence, because Beethoven died not much later. Gustav Mahler broke the 'curse of the Ninth' by writing, after his Eighth, Das Lied von der Erde, a symphonic song cycle of some kind. With his Ninth, he delivered a sublime instrumental work in which fierce passion, irony, humour, melancholy and death are ingeniously interwoven. It is a great pleasure to have the London Philharmonic Orchestra, still considered one of the best orchestras in the world, cross the channel for Mahler's last completed symphony.