To Cooke, Mahler's is "the Choral Symphony of the twentieth century: like Beethoven's, but in a different way, it sets before us an ideal which we are as yet far from realising—even perhaps moving away from—but which we can hardly abandon without perishing".
Para Cooke, a de Mahler é "a Sinfonía Coral do século XX: como a de Beethoven, mais de xeito distinto, preséntanos un ideal que estamos aínda lonxe de acadar -mesmo quizais afastándonos- pero que non podemos abandonar sen perecer".