Richard Morrison's article in The Times said:

>Mahler, after all, is a teenagers' composer.  His music is best savoured
>when you are 18, at which point it exactly fits your world-view: that life,
>love and death are heroic adventures, worthy to be celebrated in music of
>heaven-storming grandeur.

Oddly enough, Mahler was my entrance into classical music.  I was swept
away by the sheer power and pure sound of Mahler's music.  I was a
teenager, a college freshman.

>Hear the same pieces when you are 37 or 47, and it is liable to be a case of
>emotion recollected in sterility.  By then, most of us have found life to be
>neither heroic nor tragic: rather, it's paying the    mortgage and muddling
>through.  The rollercoaster ride hasn't happened. We can still thrill to
>Mahler's huge emotional odysseys, but the thrill is rooted in escapism or
>nostalgia.

True enough, I am 45 and Mahler no longer has a strong grip on me.  I now
prefer the wit and economy of Haydn.  Still. . .

>old habits die hard.  I still check my diary each time I see a Mahler
>concert advertised.

Funny he should mention that when I am boarding a plane in a few days to
hear the Cleveland Orchestra perform the Ninth.

>And the Eighth Symphony is the greatest event of them all.

I would not go that far.  Its big and grand, but very incoherent as far as
I am concerned.  Mahler was stretching and reaching without ever grasping
anything (same with his 7th).

>Mr Bryan Adams so memorably wrote, I'm 18 till I die.

Who is Bryan Adams?  And why would anyone want to be 18 again?  But then,
after reading this essay, guess what I listened to over the weekend?

Thanks, John, for posting this article.

Mark