Tonight's performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony marks a new beginning for Maestro Auguste Leloir. Behind him are the ghosts of his first appearance with the Chicago Philharmonia thirty years ago, when the dreams of the conductor and his new bride were brutally destroyed by the blade of an unknown assailant. But at the end of the evening's triumphant concert, death emerges once again to take the solo bow. The Philharmonia's principal oboist and Auguste's longtime friend, Nicholas Koshevsky, suffers a heart attack onstage during the fading chords of Mahler's great requiem, the Final Adagio....

Tonight's performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony marks a new beginning for Maestro Auguste Leloir. Behind him are the ghosts of his first appearance with the Chicago Philharmonia thirty years ago, when the dreams of the conductor and his new bride were brutally destroyed by the blade of an unknown assailant. But at the end of the evening's triumphant concert, death emerges once again to take the solo bow. The Philharmonia's principal oboist and Auguste's longtime friend, Nicholas Koshevsky, suffers a heart attack onstage during the fading chords of Mahler's great requiem, the Final Adagio....