Here is how DH reacted to this latest box set: He does mention the sound has improved, especially for the M2, M5, and M8.
GUSTAV MAHLER
Symphonies Nos. 1-10 (Adagio only); Das Lied von der Erde; Gustav Mahler Remembered (interviews)
Various soloists
New York Philharmonic
Israel Philharmonic
London Symphony Orchestra
Leonard Bernstein
Sony Classical- 88697453692(CD)
Reference Recording - This One; Bertini (EMI); Chailly (Decca)
Performance 10/Sound 8
First, let's understand why this reissue is a typical example of major-label stupidity (no, they never learn). If you're going to celebrate Bernstein's Sony recordings of Mahler, why not include them all? For example, Des Knaben Wunderhorn was a major recording, ripe for remastering, and the various song cycles included in the previous symphony box have all disappeared in this reissue. So have the internal tracks that allow you to navigate within movements. There is no excuse for having the first movement of the Third Symphony alone on a single disc when there's plenty of additional material available that could have been included. Finally, the two-disc cardboard slipcases have their openings at the spine-end, making it very, very difficult to get the discs out and replace them. What moron plans these things? What's so challenging about taking all of Bernstein's Mahler, remastering it, and putting it in a box? It's really incomprehensible!
I had to get that rant out of the way because these really are landmark recordings, and there are in fact some important additions this time around: specifically, the Israel Philharmonic Das Lied von der Erde (with Ludwig and Kollo the excellent soloists), and the complete "Mahler Remembered" interviews with colleagues who played under Mahler (as well as his daughter, Anna). This is billed as receiving its first release on CD, which of course is nonsense. It was included in the New York Philharmonic's own Mahler box some years ago.
Most importantly, the remastering has dramatically improved the sound of some of the most problematic recordings: the Second (NYPO version), Fifth, Eighth, and Das Lied all sound substantially more vivid and present than ever before, to the point where these interpretations really do remain extremely competitive even today, when new Mahler recordings are a dime a dozen. Certainly the performances of Symphonies Nos. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 remain benchmark interpretations by any standard.
It's fashionable today to downplay Bernstein's contribution to the Mahler renaissance, and to over-rate the significance of predecessors such as Walter, Mitropoulos, and Horenstein. Important though they may have been (in spots), not only did their Mahler performances not matter in the same way that Bernstein's did, the recorded evidence shows why: Bernstein was demonstrably superior in this music than they were, if by that we mean able to realize the composer's directives in a technically superior and idiomatically stylish way. It's particularly silly to exaggerate the importance of the fact that Bernstein's predecessors were "playing the music" in concert. So what? The handful of people that attend live events do not a popular revolution make. It was the systematic release of the complete symphony cycle by a major label with serious distribution that made the difference to the vast majority of listeners, most of whom never would get a chance to hear the music live.
These interpretations are particularly important because they completely belie Bernstein's reputation as an indulgent artist given over to excess and emotional exaggeration. In fact, by today's standards, what Bernstein gives us here is Mahler that captures all of the music's extremes of excitement and color while never losing sight of the music's structure and carefully planned proportions. Bernstein's Mahler is, in fact, shapely. Nothing that he does lacks clear justification in the printed page. I can point to countless examples of recent Mahler conductors who are both more self-indulgent and less observant of detail than Bernstein ever was--Levine, Segerstam, Sinopoli, Rattle, and Norrington among them--without being notably more in sync with the music's expressive point.
In short, what Bernstein gave us was the total Mahlerian package, and while he did better some of these performances in his DG cycle (notably Symphonies Nos. 1 and 5), these first versions have lost none of their freshness or sense of discovery. As such, they are irreplaceable, and incomparable.
--David Hurwitz
