Walter wrote:

>It's Oskar Fried's performance of Berlioz' symphony with the USSR Symphony
>Orchestra, recorded in 1937, but don't let its age deter you.
>
>Fried, a conductor of prominent German orchestras, including the Berlin
>Philharmonic, of whom I have recordings of Beethoven's Ninth and Mahler's
>Second, among other orchestral works, was, as a non-Aryan, forced to
>leave Germany and eventually settled in the USSR, where he died in 1941
>under circumstances the liner notes describe as "mysterious".

Fried also has the distinction of being the first to record a Mahler
symphony, the 2nd.  He did this in 1924 in an acoustical recording.
You can find this in remastered -- but still pretty scrappy -- sound,
coupled with several early recordings of Mahler lieder, on Naxos Historical
8.110152.  This disc also has the first recording of the Kindertotenlieder,
Jascha Horenstein conducting Heinrich Rehkemper and the Berlin State
Opera Orchestra.  The latter is in surprisingly good sound, all things
considered.

Mitch Friedfeld