Still they arrive: three excellent Mahler releases in as many months! How lucky am I? First Runnicles’ Fifth, then Petrenko’s Third and now No. 2, the mighty Resurrection.

This particular performance had a special significance for everyone present. It marked what seemed like a premature end to what had appeared the highly successful tenure of Esa-Pekka Salonen at the helm of the San Francisco Symphony. Salonen’s tenure there lasted only five or six years, including the COVID collapse, which is a surprisingly brief period for a conductor of his status (I remember reviewing a CBS recording of Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony with the top tier Philharmonia as long ago as 1986, when he was all of 25).

Following hot on the heels of Andris Nelsons’ bomb shell departure from Boston, you wonder what’s going on behind the boardroom’s green baize door. Unlike in Boston, Salonen’s reasons for leaving were relatively clear, despite being couched in the usual weasel-worded human resources media release – with a dash of AI – about “creative differences, contrasting trajectories and visions, inability ‘to join us...