Mahler routinely has the prominence in our concert programmes of anniversary composers. In recent weeks, and without seeking him out, I heard his first symphony in two interpretations, his fifth and his sixth, and his symphonic poem Totenfeier, which became the first movement of his second. All are enormous structures, and the fact is no longer any kind of deterrent. What will happen in 2010, his 150th birthday year, and 2011, the centenary of his death, one can well imagine.
It is a glorious thing, of course, to hear a fine account of a Mahler symphony. I enjoyed the BBC Symphony Orchestra's rawly powerful reading, under Jiri Belohlavek, of the Fifth at the Barbican, and it was satisfying to proceed straight to the Sixth, as