I am truly sorry to hear of your baby's illness, and hope that everything is OK now.
With all due respect, I think you have basically proven my point. I never said that the SWR orchestra was as good as, say, the Concertgeobouw--but they don't have to be. They are capable, as you yourself admit, of turing in an excellent PERFORMANCE, this being a combination of playing and interpretation. Obviously not every moment is perfect, but then, not every moment in Chailly's is perfect either. If you want to pick any performance apart bar by bar you can make similar criticisms of any performance. My only point is that there are no obvious technical errors, no stylistic or idiomatic shortcomings, and the playing is GENERALLY of very high quality. You are bothered by the tone of the brass at that particular moment in the finale--I am not. But then, this is your favorite Mahler movement and you have very specific preferences in this regard--but that is all they are: preferences--and not measures of quality. Incidentally, I like Chailly's Mahler 3 very much.
Dave H
