The Prime Minister listens to the last movement of Mahler’s Ninth

We saw him once: ushered into the back room at the record store,

where it was known he’d make his choices among the late Romantics. 

He sailed serenely past us while we paused, a little awestruck, from

flicking through the racks and bins, then turned to one another, agog.

So it might have been Boulez at that time, or others of that ilk,

from where he’d go back to the eyrie he was known to inhabit

among his antique clocks and furniture; his Parnassian mode.

Later, it was said that he might even have been depressed at times,

‘somewhere else’ when the call for him to join the battle required

his characteristic aggression and drive.  But he was troubled

by Mahler, who prescribed abandoning 19 out of 20

ideas every day.  That’s how I see him now: all he can hear

is that final coda behind the sense of crisis, the raised tones

around the table; those sparse, lingering notes demand that he change

his life, not the country’s.  A symphony must be like the world, says

Mahler to Sibelius; why not vice-versa? broods the PM.

​

Live Encounters, May 2026