"Bernard Haitink has apparently only recorded the Ninth Symphony once before, as part of his complete cycle with the Concertgebouw Orchestra for Philips, released in 1970....there's a feeling of urgency about this new performance that I don't remember in Haitink's Mahler before, as if he is now almost impatient with the Ninth's resigned acceptance of mortality. There's an angularity about the woodwind lines and a rawness to the textures from what is one of Europe's finest orchestras that seems to expose the music's nerve ends; it's not always comfortable listening, but it is sometimes startling." - Andrew Clements, The Guardian, London