In this Mahler's Ninth, traversed from the outset by the cardiac extrasystole which was about to lead its composer to his death shortly afterwards, this very Russian, Dostoevskian liturgy of darkness emerges with a clarity that hurts. Delman is the survivor of the death of an entire epoch: his logographer, glossator, in the hermitage of his own soul. Everything in this Ninth is driven to the breaking point; the orchestra gasps for breath. Yet, in the end, one feels that there is no other way to experience music.
