Bernard Chasan wrote:

>I agree with Dave that the word "perfectly" must be considered in context,
>so indeed Mahler's Symphonies can be considered as perfectly messy, etc.

In summary, I suppose, it has been seen that Mahler probably intentionally
wrote perfectly messy symphonies & it could well have been that that
_had been_ Mahler's purpose, which would in fact be pluperfect.  Whether
or not that had been seen also by Mahler's contemporaries remains to be
seen in the light of recent Mahlerian scholarship.

Geoffrey Gaskell