My New Favorite Piece

What caused me to write about the Mahler symphony was the fact that after nine years, I now have a new favorite piece, something that moves me just as much.  I've been looking for a good recording of Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht and I found one with one of my favorite conductors, Jascha Horenstein.  I've been listening to it every day - it's become a ritual.  The only other piece I have ever listened with such a degree of devotion was the Mahler.  At that point, I realized that I now have a new favorite piece.  I can't tell you exactly why.  It's a hauntingly beautiful work.  It's a musical setting of a poem that is ultimately about redemption and the despair that preceded it.