A capacity audience at The Sage Gateshead had the rare privilege of seeing the esteemed maestro Lorin Maazel taking the Philharmonia Orchestra on the next stage of a marathon journey through the Mahler symphony cycle. French pianist Lise de la Salle, who took the musical world by storm as a teenage prodigy, introduced the concert with a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 9 “Jeunehomme”. Assertive and purposeful, she explored the score with a maturity that belied her 22 years. Her phrasing was emphatic without losing the sense of poetry, while her cadenza was given an added twist. Then the moment everyone had waited for. The opening trumpet fanfare of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony cut air like a laser, before the orchestra came crashing in with first mighty chords. Maazel laid out the funeral march with a steady deliberation, delivering the lamenting passages in bleeding chunks. No matter how many recordings one may have listened to, nothing could equal the spectacle of this epic work taking shape. In the stormy second movement the energy boiled visibly across the stage, as the juxtaposing musical forces battled it out. Amidst the angry sea, Maazel remained a steady hand on tiller, calmly marking the beat, and delivering the contrasting passages of hope with heart-breaking effect. The Adagietto, associated by many with the 1971 movie Death in Venice, was played with an ineffable tenderness, while the many themes of the work were deftly fused in a triumphant climax.