You'll just have to take it on trust from me that to hear the world's most responsive orchestra conducted by the world's finest living conductor in the deepest symphony ever written is the one concert hall experience you can't afford to miss. And since tickets for this event have been the hardest-to-get ever, live viewing will have to be a second best for most. Tonight you can watch Claudio Abbado conducting his beloved superband the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in Mahler's Ninth Symphony as it unfurls from the Nouvel-designed concert hall.
It's here on the Lucerne Festival's website, starting at 6.30pm UK time. Expect the most burnished string sound since the Karajan era at the Berlin Philharmonic (several of whose star players feature here), combined with much greater flexibility and fabulous balances.
Mahler's final Adagio either works totally, or not at all: the long silences will play their part tonight. Abbado's three-weeks-a-year relationship with his handpicked festival players has been giving us the greatest Mahler I've ever heard since 2003, and since the Ninth, written under a medical death-sentence, demands more than any, you can have some vague idea of the supernatural magic in store.
UPDATE: as Minnie points out in her comment below, the TV channel Arte is screening the event on the evening of 19 September.
Below: Abbado conducting the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in Mahler 6 in 2007:
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