Just speaking for myself, I like Tennstedt's earlier studio M8 much more than the live one that showed up on video. Part II of the live one just loses shape for me, as Tennstedt loads it with massive ritardandos at every possible harmonic cadence point, and at every junction from one section to the next. Pianists and conductors - man, they just kill me! You wouldn't talk that way, and most singers wouldn't sing in such an exaggerated manner. Could you imagine an Ella Fitgerald performance of some Irving Berlin standard being imbued with massive ritard's everywhere - nobody would listen to it!
But getting back on point, for all the overloaded expressive points that Tennstedt makes in Part II, he still takes the end of the work at a relatively quick pace. Yes, it's loud and everybody is dedicated. But everybody is loud and dedicated on pretty much ANY Mahler 8th (except Abbado). I think Tennstedt's studio one is better recorded, better sung (for the most part), and certainly better conducted. For me, Tennstedt 'went off the rails' in his late period, and pretty much only the M6 works with type of treatment. That said, I would like to have heard a late Bruckner 8 from him (but not with the LPO).
I'm glad I got to see Tennstedt earlier in his career - I saw him do a 'knock out' M2 in RFH in early 1981 (before the EMI studio recording came out). The exaggerated later ones aren't nearly as good, regardless of what his sycophants say.
