Giulini’s answer to the question of what fascinated him about making music amounted to his Credo: “Music is a great miracle and a great mystery. Even a single note is a mystery, a miracle in itself. The note appears quite suddenly and as it is born it has already passed away. Everything to do with music is fascinating – whether conducting or playing.”

In late February and early March 1976 Giulini presented two contrasting symphonic formal worlds in Haydn’s 94th and Mahler’s 1st. The Haydn, with its famous drumbeat in the second movement, demonstrated Giulini’s special aptitude for the Viennese Classical repertoire according to the critic Wolfgang Schimming (Der Abend): “Few conductors could elicit from the orchestra such grace and cheerfulness, with such economy of baton technique.” Schimming praised the distinctions of both Giulini’s musicianship and the empathy of the Berlin Philharmonic. In Der Tagesspiegel Wolfgand Burde wrote: “the audience now witnessed and admired an uncommonly elegant, fluent and energetic interpretation of the Haydn. Giulini shaped the Andante carefully and gently, and the minuet followed like a waltz; the outer movements were brisk without any suggestion of rushing ...”

In Giulini’s Mahler Wolfgang Burde saw “an appealing compromise between presentation of the composer’s fascinating palette of sounds and a meticulous attention to the kind of detailed features that characterise the terseness of the vocal song style.” In the third movement, with its funeralmarch Frère Jacques folk song, the conductor was clearly at pains to show the underlying ambivalence of the music, particularly stressing the role of the woodwind. “Only in the final movement did Giulini wholly release Mahler’s sonic language, bringing the players to extreme limits of orchestral expression.” According to Wolfgang Schimming, Giulini “constantly, through gestural restraint, held in balance the overall architecture of the music with the various constituent instrumental parts.”

Excerpt from the note: Helge Grünewald, 2011 (translation: Jonathan Katz)