"O Mensch! Gib acht"

[Russ Smiley]

I recently listened in close succession to M3s by Zinman, Boulez, and Gilbert (the latter from the streaming audio of the NYPO debut that I crudely captured).
I noted that I don't particularly like when the "...sch" is overly articulated.  So I quickly sampled my collection of M3s.
  Anne Sofie von Otter doesn't (Boulez)
  Birgit Remmert doesn't (Zinman)
  Petra Lang does (Gilbert)
  Anna Larson doesn't (Salonen)
  Gwendolyn Killebrew doesn't (Bertini)
  Michelle deYoung does (Haitink/CSO)
  Dagmar Peckova doesn't (Nagano)
  Christa Ludwig doesn't (Bernstein/NYPO DG)[/li][/list]
I now suppose it may be a matter of whether the diction was for the benefit of the live audience or the microphone.
If others have a better understanding, please share.

[barry guerrero]

I think you raise a good point. What's interesting is that Mahler doesn't proportion just long he wants the vowel - "e" - sustained, and how much time he wants spent on the "sch" part. He simply writes a whole note for the entire word, "Mensch". Given that fact, I would think that singers would want to spend as much time as they get away with on the "e" part (eeeeeeeeee), and very little on the "sch" business. But it's almost as though some singers relish that "sch" at the end. In some cases, it really becomes an affectation.