Deryk Barker wrote in reply to my reservations about Mahler Five on tour:

>Weeeeeeeeeeeeell now, who can say.  I did think Janos was a little OTT
>there.  MTT - assuming he is conducting - has respectable "chops" and his
>Mahler 3 (which I have yet to hear) is highly regarded in some quarters
>(and apparently MTT thinks very highly of the Horenstein 3rd, so he can't
>be all bad).  OTOH their Mahler 2 under Blomstedt was beautifully played
>and recorded but dull as ditchwater.

I think my reservations really revolve around programming.  Recently we
have had a thread about how American music is best played by Americans,
and then, when a major tour by a major American orchestra is planned, they
decide to do things like Mahler Five in the very hall which has such a long
tradition in that composer's music.  Wouldn't it have shown a little more
daring if they had programmed some lesser known American music? In that
way, we would have had a little of what we don't know rather than more of
the same.  And let's face it - we hardly need orchestras to cross the pond
to give us more of that.

Jonathan