“Mahler embraced everything that exists.”

Do you remember when you heard Mahler’s music for the first time, and what your reaction was?

Salonen: I cannot remember what the first piece was; it might have been the 5th Symphony. My conducting teacher, Jorma Panula, was the first Finnish conductor to conduct a Mahler cycle, that is all the Mahler symphonies, and this was in Finland in the 70s. I did hear every piece in the cycle during that time, but I cannot remember what the first one was. I remember the feeling though – I was a little bewildered. I was very familiar with Bruckner at the time, and I was very taken by the simplicity and clarity of the form in Bruckner. There is a kind of lack of evolution; he just presents the material – a bit like Japanese cuisine in a way, here is the raw material. Whereas with Mahler, especially later Mahler, the material is in a state of constant flux; there is constant variation going on, and there is sometimes cyclical variation, so you have variations upon variations in a way. So the first impression was a little bewildering, and I find that some of the symphonies are still difficult to get a grasp of, formally speaking. Like No. 7: I have conducted it many, many times, and I have also heard it many times, but I still find that it takes quite a bit of energy for me to know where I am exactly within that form.

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