"The orchestra is renowned for its Mahler interpretations, and I intend to continue that tradition," promised Alain Altinoglu in 2021, when he took over as Music Director of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. The French musician's Mahler approach is rich in detail, structurally attentive, and finely shaped in its orchestral colours.

In Symphony No. 9, however, the colours are not the most radiant, naturally so, since this is not about the failure of an individual's search for happiness, but rather about a failure of the world as a whole. It is not only Mahler the man who stands before the abyss, but humanity itself, which he sees poised on the edge of a precipice. Mahler's final symphony has often been described as a universal requiem, one of the most profound and moving works in the orchestral repertoire. It is frequently interpreted as a meditation on death, farewell, and transcendence toward higher realms. Through this work, Mahler takes leave of life, of love, of nature, and of the homeland he cherished; of a society that was for him both a source of pride and of shame. It is, ultimately, his way of saying goodbye to life itself.

"This is the purest music Mahler ever wrote," said Arnold Schönberg about Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 9, a work you can hear live from Alte Oper Frankfurt on Friday, March 20^th 2026.

Radio România Muzical invites you to listen to this concert starting at 9:00 PM, as part of the program European Stage.