The greatest symphony of all is surely Mahler's ninth. It is a work so monumental that no recording can ever adequately contain it. Deutsche Grammophon's double CD of Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1977, then issued on vinyl, is as fine as any, but still fails to transmit the pin-drop tension in that hushed anticipation of eternity of the final movement which the greatest concert hall performances have achieved. For this reason the adagio is a disappointment. Still Giulini inspires truly heroic playing from the Chicagoans elsewhere. The horns seem to echo throughout with the primal beauty of sound before it was tamed. The bassoons dance with the bucolic innocence of man in his natural state in the waltz, the entire orchestra is infected with maniacal laughter in the rondo-burlesque, and the strings constant comfortable resolution on to the chord of the ninth in the first movement bears the hallmarks of an obsession. Did the symphony's number govern its form?

The space on the second disc is filled with a polished and weighty performance of Schubert's "unfinished" symphony. Incompleteness is the only reasonable response to the greatest symphony of all. --Rick Jones