Famously, Gustav Mahler once told Jean Sibelius that ‘[a] symphony must be like the world – it must contain everything.’ Running for more than ninety minutes, indeed often cited as the longest symphonic work in the standard orchestral repertoire, his third essay in this genre (first performed in its entirety in 1902, conducted by Mahler) arguably gets closest to realising such an ambition. The composer suggested, furthermore, that the work was inspired by the contemplation of a soul’s journey from the natural world to the spiritual, no less.

Under Chief Conductor Jaime Martín, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra gave a strong, and at times ravishing, rendition of this especially complex score, albeit not without some technical challenges from both the stage and auditorium. The former took the shape of a constantly malfunctioning data projector (which, by constantly drawing my attention towards the huge drab Masonite back panel in the Hall served also to remind me just how symbolically and aesthetically bad the absence of an organ remains for a venue that otherwise claims to be a ‘premier venue for orchestral and chamber music’). The latter was a higher than usual number of mobile phone ‘fails’ – or was this some kind of ultimate realisation of Mahler’s idea of a symphony being ‘like the world’?