IT FELT rather like an end-of- term party.

It was the last symphony in a gargantuan project which has heard the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra play every symphony – along with associated large-scale orchestral works – by Mahler over two years.

It’s certainly grabbed attention in Liverpool. Houses have been sell-outs and, while other outfits have performed similar cycles, it’s been what Vasily Petrenko and the RLPO have been doing which has attracted the attention nationally, if not internationally.

It could have been a party, but Mahler’s Ninth Symphony is not the sort of celebration many other composers had towards the end of their lives: compare, for instance, Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, where he looks back over some immense achievements with smug satisfaction.

For Mahler, knowing that the end was night (and, indeed, he never survived to hear the work performed) this was a work which seemed to fear the worst.

But what a performance.

It will be remembered not for the crashing fortissimos but for the barely perceptible sounds which verged on silence.