I discovered Mahler when I was eighteen, the first, and then the ninth. He was my soul, and over the years I kind of listened him to death. At this point, at fifty-four, it's been some years since I've listened to the pieces that mean most to me, the fifth, sixth, ninth, the Cooke tenth - this because I know them so well, and because it's quite exhausting to engage with them. I listen to the two sets of Rueckert songs, which are easier to bear because shorter, and to the seventh, the least emotionally intense of his symphonies, and the eighth, with its unspeakable cosmic joy.