Come on, you know I can't abide sexual analogies as a moderator.
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Anyway, yes, the Eighth. I know exactly the motif you're talking about. It does seem to win most "worst Mahler Symphony" polls, for some reason I can never explain. I love the way everything in it keeps developing and everything flows out of what came before. The fact that it's harmonically less complex than either of the works that bookend it doesn't mean it's a regression in terms of its technique.