Mark Swed: “OK, maybe he took himself a little too seriously, but he was a poet — and pope — of the podium. He was also of another era and culture. He represented the sophisticated Italy of impeccable tailoring, impeccable manners, impeccable musicianship. Every note he conducted had to have meaning. Music was a calling, a religion. But as time passed, Giulini has come to seem distant, remote, no longer relevant, maybe even a little quaint. These days, Pierre Boulez’s unsentimental, musically revelatory — and if truth be told, far more impeccably played — Mahler Ninth with Chicago is the recording to have.”