Donald Scarinci ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>What do people think of Bernstein's Mahler's Symphony #4?  Is there a must have
>performance of this?

Do you mean his NYPO on SOny or the Concertgebouw (?) on DG with the boy
soprano - an interesting experiment which doesn't work for me.

My favourite 4th right now - although it has been a very lucky symphony on
record - is the 1958 Philharmonia/Kletzki (EMI or Royal Classics) w Emmy
Loose.  Wonderful performance in every respect, with no major pulling
around of the music, Loose is superb, the recording is very good and this
was one of Denis Brain's last recordings - he died less than 2 months
later.

Raskin/Szell/Cleveland is very fine and Mahler historians won't want to be
without Mengelberg's 1939 performance.

Incidentally, the very first recording of this - and the first electrical
recording of a Mahler symphony (Fried's 2nd was acoustic), was made in
Japan by the New Tokio Symphony under Viscount Hidemaro Konoye - in 1930!
It's not quite the first complete electrical Mahler symphoy, because its
missing the last 4 bars or so - presumably the metal master ran out.

Deryk Barker
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