Since the newly remastered version has come out, this recording has definitely moved up a bit in my estimation. For one thing, the organ - which sounded awful on the original version - sounds much more believable now. In his review of Rattle's M2 for High Fidelity magazine (or maybe it was Stereo Review, I don't remember), Dave Hurwitz described the organ as sounding like a Maytag - more an appliance than a musical sounding instrument. I'm afraid I completely agreed with him on that point. Then there are two other complaints that I still have. In the first movement, I still don't like the way that Rattle exaggerates Mahler's marking to speed up during those seven ascending diatonic notes in the low strings, by starting out waaay too slow with that upward flourish. It's not such a problem near the beginning of the symphony, but it sounds quite lame after the main climax of the first movement. It sort of demasculates what just happened, if that makes any sense. I also don't like the almost ridiculously slow run that Rattle conducts to conclude the first movement. Combined with the way he balances the chording, it sounds very labored and strange to me. My other complaint is with, of course, the tam-tam playing. Because they still insist on useing those awful sounding Paiste tam-tams in England (while the rest of the world pretty much uses Wuhans), the dynamics come out inconsistant. Sometimes the tam-tam is way over balanced. At other times, even when it should be louder, you hardly hear the tam-tam at all. As a percussionist, that does bother me. But more to the point, it undermines some climaxes, while burying the balances in other ones. Beyond these somewhat minor complaints, I feel that this is a pretty good M2. I agree that his second movement is particularly good.
Rattle's scherzo isn't bad either, but I really like the scherzo on Chailly's M2. Unfortunately, the rest of it just isn't up to Chailly's usual high standards. The scherzo is also excellent on the new Fischer/BFO one, which is now my overall favorite M2 of any. He does it very much like the way Klemperer does it on his live BRSO one (also with Janet Baker!!): kind of slow and craggy. My least favorite scherzo is probably Boulez/VPO. He skates over it so quickly, that it hardly makes a dent along the way. I like the andante to be slightly faster than usual, and the scherzo to be somewhat on the slow side of the equation; like Klemperer (but with strong climaxes!). That's just my preference.
