The latter.
Yes, you did manage to redeem yourself by including Ricard Strauss in your postscript. Im Abendrot may be the most exquisite song ever written. How does one choose between Salome, Arabella, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Die Frau Ohne Schatten?? How does one person write both Salome and Der Rosenkavalier? The tone poems? Metamorphosen?
Although he did not start it, he capped off the incomparable canon of German Romantic work. One can only imagine what our musical universe would be like today had Mahler lived. Although there are exceptions (Otello, some Puccini moments), Italian opera merely makes me want to eat a salami panino as they do in Milan. I may only be obtuse as opposed to a Francophobe, but I have little affinity for French music, much as I have tried. At least Italian music makes me hungry. I could probably appreciate Russian opera more if I could get past the notion of Heldenbasses and evil tenors.
Ah but the Krauts and the Osterreicher! Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Strauss. These are the works which bring me to states for which there are no words. OK, OK, there are a few throwbacks in one genre, such as Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, and Gorecki.