When Mariss Jansons succeeds Riccardo Chailly as music director of the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam next year, he will be taking charge of the orchestra with the best Mahler pedigree in the world, a lineage that stretches back to concerts with the composer himself.
Jansons himself claims a lifelong commitment to Mahler, and these live performances, recorded in Oslo in 1999 and 2000, give some indication of what Amsterdam can look forward too; both are clearly the interpretations of a conductor who knows and loves every bar of this music.
In his years in Oslo, Jansons honed the orchestra into a great ensemble, and the detail in both symphonies here, and the huge dynamic range he employs, are hugely impressive. He is never an indulgent Mahlerian, but still one who does not pull his punches in the climaxes.
The last movement of the Ninth is an extraordinary, keening elegy, its great paragraphs carved as if from granite; if the recording were a little less recessed it would be genuinely overwhelming.
