Confessions of a lapsed Mahlerian

I was in the mood for Mahler the other night (or so I thought) and wanted to acquaint myself further with the compositions that Mahler wrote during his summers in Toblach, the Ninth and the unfinished Tenth symphonies. I discovered that the Ninth was the only Mahler symphony I didn't have in my cd collection, although I have the complete symphonies on vinyl with Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic. I couldn't remember ever having listened to the Ninth. I anticipated the treat of being swept away by a late masterpiece unknown to me. The first movement started off just fine but by the middle of it I had lost interest; it began to sound like all the previous symphonies he had written, but going through the motions with nothing new to say. The next movement, a Scherzo, although a marvel of orchestral colors and contrapuntal writing, was a hallow, noisy affair. The third movement, a Burleske, a hysterical cacaphony. I left the final movement, the Adagio, for the next evening. I couldn't get through all of it; it just didn't hold my interest. There is much of Mahler's music I adore, "Das Lied von der Erde", the Fourth, Fifth and Eighth symphonies especially, but the Ninth is not on my list of favorites. It turns the old adage, less is more, on its head, in this case: more is less. After the experience of the Ninth I felt like I had been bashed by a baseball bat. When I took the LP off and switched back to radio, an early Mozart piano concerto happened to be playing. Aaaaahhhhh! Now that's music! -- effortless, joyful, serene, like a summer breeze. There are hardly two composers more different in their approach to composition than Mozart and Mahler. Mozart is the Zen Master of classical music, completely, effortlessly in the moment. Mahler works too hard. I did listen to the Adagio of the Tenth Symphony today and was enchanted by it.