Anyone went to Blomstedt's Mahler 9 in Detorit
I was there last night...
The orchestra's overall sound especially the strings felt incredibly flat.
I couldn't feel any of the layered textures that are so characteristic of a Mahler symphony; it just lacked that sense of depth.
The hall's acoustics didn't help either.
The different instrument sections didn't blend well; the woodwinds sounded piercingly bright and sharp, and the balance completely fell apart during the tutti passages.
For context, I was sitting in the middle of the center section on the first floor.
On top of that, the audience etiquette was disappointing. While there was no clapping between movements, someone coughed incessantly for nearly 40 seconds during that beautiful opening of the fourth movement. To make matters worse, right at the end of the fourth movement someone dropped a tumbler the second the music stopped. Then, before the conductor could even lower his hands or the musicians let go of their instruments, a wave of premature applause broke out. It completely ruined the atmosphere.