``The first performance of the work took place at Munich on September 12, 1910, Mahler himself conducting.
Mahler\'s massive complex ``Symphony of a Thousand`` has been called a crowning achievement of his career, a work that integrates on a truly grand scale the musical ideas, forms, and media that dominated h.
Eight months later he was dead.`` Grove\'s Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
Its reception, which was overwhelming, was the first unqualified success that he had ever enjoyed. ``The first performance of the work took place at Munich on September 12, 1910, Mahler himself conducting