We’re at the final movement of this great symphony, and what a movement it is! If you mention Mahler 9 to almost anyone, they’ll invariably start to talk about the first time they ever heard the slow movement, and how it affected them at a critical time in their life.
In the orchestral parts, the string parts span only two pages, yet the movement can last upward of 25 minutes. It’s a very slow piece of music, but not an uneventful one.