Ideas on Naxos' Mahler?

[umbernisitani]

Recently Naxos has issued a 15-CD budget Mahler set featuring the recordings of Antoni Wit and Michael Halasz.  I think their 7th (Halasz) is pretty good and Wit's Warsaw PO Mahler 8 is of course highly praised.  Halasz's Das Lied also received critical attention in some quarters.  Otherwise, I haven't heard much of the rest of the cycle (the bits I've heard (from 1, 2, 3, 6) are rather mediocre), so I wonder if anyone here has heard the rest and if so is it any good?

[barry guerrero]

I don't remember if the M3 is Halasz or not, but it's fairly decent. Ewa Podles is the contralto, and she's fabulous. Beyond that, I'm not familiar with most of the other Naxos Mahler recordings. I very much love the conducting and the audible tam-tam on the new Houston Symphony recording of "DLvdE" (less so the vocals). James De Priest made a decent (not great) M5 with the LSO for Naxos also.

[umbernisitani]

The M3 is by Antoni Wit and I found it slightly lacklustre.  His excellent M8 with the Warsaw PO makes me want him to redo a cycle with the WPO, hopefully it will live up to the standards of that 8th.

I found Graf's Das Lied to be pretty impressive, though as you said the vocals are not great.  DePriest's M5 I have not heard however.

[techniquest]

The biggest problem I found with Wit's M3 on Naxos is that there is a really bad edit in the first movement - enough to make you go 'ooh - what happened there?' His M2 is rather good though - far better than some others I could mention; and of course his M8 is superb.
Also worthy of a mention is the Wheeler reconstruction of M10 with the Polish NRSO under Robert Olsen.