Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony has exerted a talismanic influence on the Sydney Symphony since Otto Klemperer’s legendary performance in September 1950, when Mahler’s music was essentially unknown, even in his own Vienna! That performance, archivally preserved, was to put it kindly, lacking in finesse and at a mere 68 minutes, somewhat rushed.

That crossed my mind as I beheld the forces assembled for the July 2022 performance of the Resurrection Symphony (what other choice could there possibly have been?) performed for the re-opening of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall after a two-and-a-half year closure for acoustic and aesthetic redesign, protracted by the COVID pandemic. Although the pandemic ‘foe’ was still set to inflict more misery, this was a true marquee occasion to be savoured. Here were impressive green shoots symbolising the resilience of civilisation, optimism and creative vibrancy, and the beginning of a new era with the official inauguration of Simone Young’s tenure as SSO Chief Conductor. 

Mahler once declared that a symphony should embrace all the world, and he certainly achieved that in this work: his idiosyncratic eschatology...