From January 25–27, MTT returned to Davies Symphony Hall to lead the San Francisco Symphony in a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. The performances were billed as his final subscription programs with the SF Symphony and marked the 50th anniversary of his debut with the orchestra, leading Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 in January 1974. MTT was greeted with long ovations at all three sold-out performances.

Of the performance, Joshua Kosman wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Sometimes it seems as if the music of Gustav Mahler has been the recurrent soundtrack of our lives in the Bay Area.

With Michael Tilson Thomas leading the San Francisco Symphony, time after time and year after year, these resplendent orchestral works have informed our world with their wisdom, their pathos and their ability to make time stand still.

So it was more than fitting — it was practically preordained — that the composer’s Fifth Symphony was the music to close the book on Thomas’ galvanizing 50-year history with this orchestra, as guest conductor, music director and now music director laureate. […]

The emotions flowed back and forth, from stage to audience and back again. The music intimated secrets to us about time, love and mortality, and we caught those emanations and made them our own. Thomas, as he has done for so many years in so many ways, made it all happen, in partnership with his longtime collaborators.

For an all-too-brief 90 minutes, Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony played Mahler’s music in Davies Symphony Hall, and all was right with the world.

Read the full review.