Mahler's 9th with Eschenbach

When Ferruccio Busoni’s Berceuse Élégiaque first premiered, none other than Mahler conducted it. It was also the last time he stood before an orchestra. Death is also a theme that unites Busoni’s emotionally charged piece with Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.

Busoni’s parents had recently passed, and he wrote the piece in memory of his mother. Mahler was also in the midst of trauma while working on his symphony. He had lost his four-year-old daughter and was suffering from severe heart trouble. Mahler’s Ninth Symphony was his final completed work. It premiered posthumously, the year after Mahler’s death. “It is music from another world; it comes from eternity”, said Herbert von Karajan in a frequently cited comment.

German conductor Christoph Eschenbach is a highly coveted conductor and recurring guest conductor of orchestras and at opera houses world-wide – including the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. He has previously served as chief conductor of the Tonhalle-Orchestra Zurich, Houston Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre de Paris – and recently of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.