BBC Radio 3 Building a Library: Mahler 3

[David Boxwell]

Broadcast 8 Nov 2019.  William Mival selects "best of" a very short list: I. Fischer; Boulez; Bernstein 61 & 87; Rattle; Haitink 06; and . . . Abbado 80.

Available to listen at www.bbc.co.uk

[erikwilson7]

Huh. That's sort of an interesting list. Rattle and Abbado? Haitink '06 and not his classic '66 or his excellent recent one with the BRSO?

I think it'd be fun to pick a Mahler 3 top five. It's always changing for me anyway. Here's my "best of" these days... more of a contemporary selection:

Á. Fischer, Chailly, Bernstein '87, Haitink '17, Salonen

Honorary mentions: Stenz, I. Fischer

[barryguerrero]

My top five favorites out of my vast collection - which includes many 'pirates' - would be Boulez/Vienna Phil.; Alan Gilbert/N.Y. Phil.; Jansons/B.R.S.O. (not his Concertgebouw one); Adam Fischer/Dusseldorf; Honeck/Pittsburgh.

If someone put a gun to my head and said I could only keep two, it would be Honeck/Pittsburgh for an sacd/cd hybrid, and Adam Fischer for a 'red book' cd. If they allowed me to keep just one 'pirate', it would be A. Gilbert/N.Y. Phil.

[John Kim]

Barry,

I have the Jansons/BRSO M3rd. What aspects of the recording do you like?

John

[barryguerrero]

Welllllllll, I would need to give it another listen. As I recall, it had the more 'rustic' quality that I like in Mahler 3 (in particular). Nothing sounded too polished or too slick. I thought the start of the scherzo was quite good (rustic woodwinds) and I thought the big brass chorale at the end of VI was very good as well.

[Leo K]

My current top M3's are as follows:

Asahina/OPO/Canyon
Abbado/BPO/DG
Scherchen/Leipzig 1960/Tahra

I like these mainly cause they are powerfully rustic, just what Barry was describing above.