Stuttering, arrhythmic, heartbeat rhythms in the horn and cellos, hesitant fragments of a melody in the distant french horn, then the rocking of the harp, and the first ineffably sad song of melancholic longing in the strings accompanied by restlessly rustling sextuplets in the violas. It’s the opening of Mahler’s massive, elegiac Ninth Symphony, and I cannot think of another piece which begins in such a place of desolation as this one.