Good question! Jonathan Carr's The Real Mahler is good at undoing some of the Mahler myths.

@@UlfilasNZ Cheers. I'll have a look. :)

I think that a lot has been written in retrospect. In fact, he said about the Kindertotenlieder he had composed them because children did not have their own songs of death. After his daughter's death, his wife Alma accused him of having provoked the death of his daughter with the Kindertotenliedern.

Sorry, no. Sometimes I recognize the Mahler of whom he speaks (sings), sometimes not.

He is talking about the last movement of the 7th, here's the full paragraph as it appears in the book: “In all of Mahler’s music I can think of a few places which just don’t add up, no matter what. One of these is the end of the song Um Mitternacht [At Midnight]; no matter how hard you try to figure out a relationship, you have to really work at it. Another one, which I think works much better once you’ve decided that’s the way it is - is the last movement of the 7th, which I so love. But I struggle and, my God, I’ve seen many of my colleagues struggle to figure out some way that this relates to this, relates to that, and I think that really imprisons the music. I think the idea of that movement is very much ‘discontinuity’. It’s like it anticipates techniques in film or in sound editing, of just, Jump! Cut! Bang!”

Thank you for citation. - To me, Michael Tilson Thomas doesn't understand Mahler or even misunderstand him. Why does he want to create profund relationships where there are none instead of simply being led by Mahler's music and experiencing it? E.g. there is the profound "O Mensch" right next to the playful "Bim-bam" and only that's all why the two songs have a connection. As in life too, where profound changes to playfulness without transition.