If I had a single composer's works to have with me on the proverbial desert island, I would be torn between Beethoven's, Mozart's, and Gustav Mahler's; but Mahler would get the nod, by a whisker. He's a novelist in music who leaves nothing out, a John Cowper Powys of near-infinite, glorious sound. He was born 150 years ago; of those years he only lived 51. I've loved his work since the revelatory moment at age ten or so when I heard the Ninth Symphony for the first time. Here it is performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Hermann Scherchen conducting in war-torn, Soviet-occupied Vienna in 1950.
