The NZZ raved about a "Mahler finest hour", and anyone sitting in the hall in June 2023 at Michael Tilson Thomas' only performance in the Tonhalle Zürich is likely to have felt the same way: Rarely is there such passionate applause after an 80-minute, thoroughly demanding work such as Mahler's Symphony No. 6 as was the case back then.
The guest performance by MTT, as he was known, had been planned for a long time. She "absolutely" wanted to bring him to Zurich, says Artistic Director Ilona Schmiel; "I had already had dealings with him in Bonn and it was clear that working with him would be an event for the orchestra". Tilson Thomas was not only one of the most influential figures in the American music business for decades, he was also a gifted mediator (like his mentor Leonard Bernstein before him). But then illness intervened: A brain tumour was diagnosed, and for a long time it was not certain whether Michael Tilson Thomas would ever be able to come to Zurich.
When it did work out, he put all his many years of Mahler experience to good use. He has won several of his 12 Grammys for recordings of Mahler's works, and he cultivated his very own approach to them. There was nothing overheated or over-emotionalised in his interpretation; where the music tore open abysses, he gave it and the orchestra space. The tragedy in this work was not celebrated, it developed - to quote the NZZ once again - in "highly tense composure" and through "wonderfully relaxed and yet highly focussed music-making, in which the individual instrumental groups interact considerately instead of drowning each other out".
Despite his serious illness, Michael Tilson Thomas remained at the podium until April 2025. He has now died at the age of 81.
