Mahler: Symphony No. 9

Lush and lavish this Mahler is not. But then, you wouldn't expect that, would you, from the baton of Roger Norrington? Instead, what we get is an interpretation pared back to its interpretative bones, disturbing and profound...there is no place to hide with Norrington's Mahler. And it certainly deserves to be heard.

For his live recording of Mahler's Ninth, Norrington had the orchestra's strings play in the style of Mahler's time, in which vibrato was minimal or absent except as a special effect. The effect of this clean, transparent sound on Mahler's last completed symphony is quite wonderful: Far from being dense and doom-laden, it emerges as a work of surprising optimism despite a sense of abschied (farewell) throughout.