Whitney H. Gordon wrote:

>The question posed concerns this: hoping to sense just how Mahler
>conducted.  My own untutored approach has been to follow Bruno Walter's
>lead.  Walter was Mahler's acolyte and I gather Mahler thought very highly
>of the then young conductor.

But Mahler thought very highly of Mengelberg also.  Compare Mengelberg's
recording of Mahler's Fourth with any of those of the same work by Walter
and they are completely different.  The same applies to other music for
which we have comparison.  Also Walter's style changed markedly through his
career.  Walter's performances from the 1940s are profoundly different from
those of the late 1950s.  I suspect he may have been closER to Mahler's
style earlier in his life.  However, if Mahler had lived beyond his fifty
years what's to say that his own style would not have changed too? Had
Mahler lived to the age of over eighty, as Walter did, (in other words to
1945), we would have had examples of Mahler conducting on record.  But that
style would probably have been very different from that of Mahler pre 1911.
Compare Elgar's conducting on record from pre 1920 with that of post 1930.
He has changed and, another important point, that of the musicians he is
conducting has changed too.

Tony Duggan, England.
Mahler recordings survey:
http://www.musicweb.force9.co.uk/music/Mahler/