Felix Delbruck replies to me:

>>Christoph von Dohnanyi: A great technician and an interpreter committed to
>>rethinking a score.  ...
>
>On a tangent: Steve, do you still hold as high an opinion of his Mahler
>9th as you did at first when you mentioned it 6 weeks ago? ...

I should mention that I'm emphatically not an expert on Mahler performance.
But, yes, it has held up.  With the inner movements as good as I've ever
heard them.  In my experience, if you get the outer movements in a Mahler
symphony, the inner ones tend to take care of themselves (this, of course,
is especially true for the 8th).  Again, it's an elegant, Apollonian
reading.  If you think Mahler should have lots of Angst, this isn't the
reading for you.

Incidentally, I have begun listening to Scherchen's account of the 2nd.
First time out of the shrink wrap.  The first movement sizzles - a very
unusual interpretation, which I think works.  I'll write more about it in
roughly two years.

Steve Schwartz