Ian Foster wrote:

>Which leads me on to the subject of Mahler's Ninth.  Is it depressing
>and if so, in what way or ways?
>
>Most agree that this music is at least in part about death, but
>is it despair or noble acceptance of opur mortality? Is it also about other
>"farewells"?

This is a great question!

I have usually linked Mahler's Ninth with Tchaikovsky's Sixth in that both
end with feelings of utter despair and hopelessness.  But there are also
the mini-deaths. . .  the physical pain like cancer, or the mental anguish
like desperate loneliness.  What binds us together in this human fraternity
is this powerful desire that our mini-deaths -- our grief, our pains, our
hurts -- go away, and we have no power in and of ourselves to make a go of
it.  Mahler's Ninth eloquently expresses this profound desire.

>I have to say that this music is a great favourite of mine.

Me, too!

>I have views,  which change almost every time I hear the piece.

I can't say if Mahler deals with death nobly or meanly, with courage or
cowardice.  Certainly the idea of resignation comes through to me.

Mark