My enthusiasm for YNS/Karg/BPO M4th has grown.

[John Kim]

Let me reinforce my enthusiasm for Yannick Nezet-Seguin's Berlin account of Mahler Fourth. Not since Andre Previn's EMI recording with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra have I heard such a beautiful sound rich (the strings in particular), warm, serene, and radiant.
In the Finale soprano Christiane Karg sings with an ideal voice free of parody as per Mahler's instruction.

John

[barryguerrero]

Yep. Good description. There are nice good interpretative touches too. They're just subtle.

[erikwilson7]

I should listen to this one more. I just don't need another M4 right now. I'm fully satisfied with Nott, Bernstein (Sony), and both of the Fischer brothers. It's one of the few Mahler symphonies that I'm fully satisfied with my favorite recordings. It's funny, even with my favorites of M2, M3, M5, M6, M7, M8 there are things I wish were better.

[John Kim]

And don't forget this.. How often do we get to hear the 25 something tam tam strokes in the build up of the first climax of I. struck as clearly and audibly as in this recording? They are all here!

[erikwilson7]

That's true... okay you convinced me. Any Mahler recording with very audible tam-tam has my attention.

You can hear them all on Nott's and Stenz's accounts too. I think Adam Fischer's as well. And with Chailly's you can here a really good climactic smash.

Some of my very favorite uses of tam-tam in Mahler recordings are actually Haitink's first Concertgebouw M3, first movement. The smash at the end of the trombone solo is AWESOME. And it's the weird-sounding old Concertgebouw percussion so it sounds so bizarre, sexy, foreign. Gives me goosebumps when I hear it. No one has come close ever since, not even the man himself in his 93 recordings of M3 that followed.