Why Mahler? by Norman Lebrecht and The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824 by Harvey Sachs | Book reviews

Stephen Moss steels himself for two music-lovers' personal odysseysNorman Lebrecht has been tweeting the virtues of his book on Mahler so vigorously in the past month that I was unusually keen to trash it. I also had something of a personal score to settle. In 2002 we were both in Vienna to hear millionaire Mahler fanatic Gilbert Kaplan record the Second Symphony – Kaplan is obsessed by this work – with the Vienna Philharmonic. Lebrecht gave me a lift in his taxi back to the airport after th...

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