A long-distance look ... Gustav Mahler. Photograph: Corbis
Mahler's symphonies have become an essential part of the modern orchestral repertoire over the past half-century. So it's surprising how rare it is to get a cycle of the symphonies in a single season. Valery Gergiev's 2007-8 Mahler cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra, which kicked off last night at the Barbican, is in fact only the third such cycle in London. Given that orchestral programming is nowadays so dominated by cycles and projects, and that Mahler, with Beethoven and Shostakovich, has been for decades the most bankable of composers for concert hall managements, this is almost unbelievable.
A Mahler symphony is a substantial undertaking for any orchestra. Today's orchestras are far more familiar with him than those of the early or mid 20th century. Playing standards are generally higher, too. Yet the length, technical demands and rehearsal time involved are significant - especially for the larger and less frequently played numbers 3, 7, 8 and 10, to say nothing of a quasi-symphonic piece like Das Lied von der Erde. To put an entire cycle together multiplies those challenges many times over.
Nevertheless, Mahler has been such a dominant presence in modern concert life that there must be some further explanation. One practical factor is that rather few of the symphonies are nowadays performed in a mixed programme. Numbers 1 and 4 (and Das Lied) are sometimes given after an interval with other music in the first part of the concert. But that leaves the eight other symphonies to be programmed in splendid isolation. It means putting a lot of eggs in Mahler's basket. A Beethoven cycle can be smartly despatched in five concerts - but a Mahler cycle takes twice that number.
And maybe planners suspect that audience appetites for Mahler should not be tested too far. A great symphony like number 3 or number 9 is a deep and intense orchestral experience - as anyone privileged to hear Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra at this year's Proms will attest. But not many listeners would want second course of similar richness immediately.
Yet Mahler is a composer whose exploration of the symphony takes many paths and whose output lends itself in principle to a holistic approach. From the Wunderhorn influences in the four first symphonies (three of which have important vocal and/or choral sections), Mahler's symphonies then go through a wholly orchestral phase in the next three. In number 8, the choral setting returns, larger and more imposing (and in my view less successfully) than ever, before numbers 9 and 10 (uncompleted) return to exclusively orchestral scoring. Finally comes the nonpareil vocal masterpiece of them all, Das Lied von der Erde.
More than 20 years ago, Abbado (also with the LSO) showed London audiences that this entire oeuvre can not only withstand a concentrated treatment but can even benefit from it.
So can Gergiev deliver? Few, if any, conductors have ever ranked with the disciplined and scrupulous Abbado for Mahler. Gergiev has certainly masterminded symphonic cycles by other masters in recent years - the success of his Prokofiev 07,00.html and Shostakovich series doubtless spurred him and his managers to attempt this one. But Gergiev will have to raise his music making to new levels to carry this great Mahler project to fruition.
