Mahler 9, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra/Roger Norrington, Royal Albert Hall - review - Music - Arts

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Putting a stop-watch on a performance doesn't tell the whole truth but a 1930s recording by Bruno Walter (who conducted the work's 1912 premiere), ran to around 70 minutes, while Herbert von Karajan's 1985 reading clocked in at 85 minutes: a massive difference.

No one would call Roger Norrington middle-of-the-road but his performance with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra took 77 minutes: not too fast, not too slow. Under Norrington's genial direction, vibrato is rationed, a doctrine which paid most dividends in slow passages. Even so, Norrington, who conducted sitting down, didn't quite weave the opening movement's multiple strands into a convincing whole. Of course, disparateness is part of the point, yet here the noisy climaxes felt manufactured, although the moments of sadness were beautifully handled.

The clumping coarseness of the next movement's dances wasn't overstated but that same reticence left the following Rondo burleske rather short of raucous knockabout, despite some fruity trumpet and gorgeously over-ripe glissandos. In the closing Adagio, by contrast, everything came together, from the string melody that set the movement in motion to the closing wisps that melted into silence, like a candle guttering into extinction.

Repeat R3 (July 27) and BBC Four (July 28); also available on BBC i-Player (0845 4015040, bbc.co.uk/proms)

Mahler 9, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra/Roger Norrington
Royal Albert Hall
sw7