Mahler's Symphony No. 9

Almost exactly one hundred years ago, on May 18, 1911, the great composer and conductor Gustav Mahler died of a blood infection just weeks before his fifty-first birthday.  His last complete work, the Symphony No. 9, was composed following a whirlwind period of great loss and supreme achievement, including the composition of his “symphony without a number,” Das Lied von der Erde.  Symphony No. 9 reaches the greatest apex of Mahler’s compositional catalogue, exhibiting his characteristic subtle transition, expansion, and continuous variation at their fullest.