Love at second sight
Gustav Mahler and the Berliner Philharmoniker

Mahler’s music now features so regularly in the programmes of the Berliner Philharmoniker that it is easy to forget that this was not always the case. True, Mahler himself conducted the orchestra on a handful of occasions, but audiences in Berlin at first struggled to understand his musical world. Despite this,  there were conductors who were keen to promote his works even then, and they did so with both passion and persistence. It was they and their successors who laid the foundations for the orchestra’s Mahler tradition, one which continues to leave its mark on the players today.

The contralto Amalie Joachim, ex-wife of the famous violinist Joseph Joachim and an acclaimed concert singer, was the first person to perform Mahler’s music with the Berliner Philharmoniker when she sang two of the songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn on 12 December 1892. At that time the orchestra was ten years old, the composer thirty-two. By that date the orchestra had established a reputation for itself as an important ensemble in the capital, while Mahler had been hailed for his work as the principal Kapellmeister at the Stadt-Theater in Hamburg. As a composer, conversely, he barely commanded attention. At the time in question he was busy working on his Second Symphony, and the Berliner Philharmoniker gave the work's world premiere – twice. In March 1895, Mahler invited Richard Strauss – his colleague, friend and rival – to conduct the first three movements of his new symphony in Berlin. The critics were merciless and dismissed the work as “altogether impossible from a musical point of view”.

Mahler refused to be deterred, and on 13 December 1895 he conducted the complete work in Berlin. He had hired the orchestra at his own expense, but it was an investment that paid off. His assistant, Bruno Walter, recalled: “Even then, of course, there was hostility, misunderstanding, belittlement and contempt. But the impression of a great and original work and of the power of Mahler’s personality was so great that his emergence as a composer can be dated to this performance.”

Unrecognized as a member of the audience

In 1895 another admirer of Mahler’s music, Arthur Nikisch, became chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker. The following year, he and the orchestra gave the first performance of the second movement of Mahler’s Third Symphony at one of their subscription concerts. The performance proved surprisingly successful. Mahler himself was in the hall, unrecognized, but he was loudly applauded when Nikisch pointed him out. The two men knew one another from the time they had worked together at the Stadttheater in Leipzig, where Mahler had held the post of second Kapellmeister under Nikisch.

Writers on Mahler have regularly claimed that Mahler and Nikisch regarded each other as rivals, but there is no obvious sign of this rivalry at a later period. As the chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Nikisch repeatedly programmed his colleague’s works, and also conducted a memorial concert marking Mahler’s death in 1911. Prior to this date, Mahler had conducted the Berlin orchestra in a complete performance of his Third Symphony in 1907, five years after the work had received its first performance in Krefeld.

A new generation of conductors

After the First World War, Mahler’s works were championed by conductors Hermann Scherchen, Gustav Brecher, Heinz Unger, Felix Weingartner, Selmar Meyrowitz and Jascha Horenstein. But two names in particular stand out from this period: Oskar Fried and Bruno Walter. Both of them had close personal links with Mahler, and they considered it their duty to popularize his music. In April 1922, for example, there was an acclaimed performance of the Third Symphony under Walter, who had long been closely associated with the orchestra. Nikisch’s successor as its chief conductor, Wilhelm Furtwängler, was also a committed Mahlerian. After his performance of the Third Symphony in March 1924, one critic wrote that Furtwängler had “the right sensitivity in his nerve endings and the necessary musical intelligence to do justice to the artistic contrasts contained in a Mahler score”. During the 1924/25 season, Klaus Pringsheim, the music director of the theatres run by Max Reinhardt in Berlin, organized the first Mahler cycle in Germany with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

The Mahler Renaissance

Mahler’s music was labelled “degenerate” banned by the National Socialists, both because of the composer's Jewish origins and because of the innovative nature of his scores. It was not until 1948 that Mahler's works began to return to the repertory of the Berliner Philharmoniker, starting with the famous Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony, followed by the First, Second, Fourth and Ninth Symphonies. By the 1960s and 1970s the Mahler Renaissance was in full swing, leading to a number of outstanding performances. Two in particular have acquired legendary status in the annals of the Berliner Philharmoniker: a performance of the Ninth under Sir John Barbirolli in 1963 and another one of the same work under Leonard Bernstein in 1979. In the wake of Bernstein’s performance, Herbert von Karajan began to work on the Ninth with the orchestra. He had already conducted Das Lied von der Erde as well as the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies during his years in Berlin.

When the Berliner Philharmoniker appointed Claudio Abbado as Karajan’s successor, they chose one of the great Mahler conductors of the time. Abbado had discovered Mahler’s music while he was still a student in Vienna: “There was no real interest in Mahler in Italy, where he was to all intents and purposes unknown. While I was studying in Vienna between 1956 and 1958, I started to get to know Mahler’s music. He was one of the great loves of my life, and also a great musician,” the conductor explained. Abbado’s sensitive and detailed readings left their mark on an entire era. His successor, Sir Simon Rattle, also had a strong affinity with Mahler. Even back in 1987, when the then 32-year-old made his debut with the orchestra in Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, this was clear. One of the high points of Rattle's tenure as chief conductor was the Mahler cycle that he presented during the 2010/11 and 2011/12 seasons, conducting all of the completed symphonies.

Mahler’s music also plays a central role in the repertory of Kirill Petrenko, who took over as chief conductor in 2019. So far he has conducted the Fourth, Sixth and Seventh Symphonies, and is now adding the Ninth, Mahler’s final completed symphony, to his repertoire with the orchestra. Many commentators see this as a work of valediction, but Kirill Petrenko does not share that view: “For me, this is a work that marks a new beginning; it is the work in which Mahler strikes out in the direction of modernity. It is no accident that Schoenberg, Berg and Adorno regarded this symphony as the spark that marked the transition from the classical age to one of free tonality.” Even today Mahler’s symphonies invite the most disparate interpretations. It is not least thanks to this quality that the works remain so timeless.