Symphony No. 9 in D major

Mahler's final completed symphony, written in 1909–10 and premiered posthumously in 1912 under Bruno Walter. It opens with a heartbeat-like rhythm in the cellos and a fractured, grief-stricken first movement widely regarded as his valediction to life. Two grotesque middle movements — a ländler and a rondo-burlesque — precede a transcendent Adagio finale that dissolves into near-silence. Bernstein called it "the most important symphony of the twentieth century."