Tony Duggan wrote: >The reason I think these excesses are inappropriate is because I think >there is already enough emotion and excess written into the music for >any more to need to be added by the conductor and that any more that gets >added becomes a self-indulgence serving the conductor and not the composer. >For me the best Mahler conductors are the ones that can allow the music >to speak for itself, allowing you to see the musical wood for the >interpretative trees, which I find I cannot do for too many great passages >under Bernstein. Which is one of the reasons I like much of the Mahler Haitink produced. Though he can be sedate at times (his first recording of the 8th is not a winner), there are a number of fine recordings where his sense of balance really pays off (the Concertgebouw 9th and BPO 3rd are good examples). In a recent television interview to mark his 70th birthday, Haitink remarked that, oddly enough, he wasn't even sure he liked Mahler. As Tony indicated, becoming over-involved may not always do the music good. Sometimes a respectful distance leads to a clearer vision. Ruben