M8, Maazel, NYPO available as download from emusic

[sperlsco]

Soloists: Christine Brewer // Nancy Maultsby // Jason Grant // Wolfgang Schone // Nancy Gustafson // Mary Phillips // Anthony Dean Griffey // Jeanine De Bique

The samples sound eerily like his dreadfully slow Vienna performance.  The Vienna performance had some nice singing (but a dreadful Mater Gloriosa), and even a good ending to Part II.  The NYPO singing does not sound as good -- at least from the 30 second samples.  I downloaded just the Chorus Mysticus track.  One of the sopranos is absolutely dreadful in her entrance.  The finale is taken very slowly all the way to the end and has a huge bass drum roll, cymbal crashes and decent tam-tam.  I don't imagine I'll waste my money downloading the rest of the performance.   

eMusic is no longer as good of a deal as it once was, although it is still cheaper than a CD.  Previously it was a great bargain for most symphonies, since it cost one download for each movement of a symphony (unless it was multi-tracked).  Now they charge 12 downloads per disc for most "name" commercial labels -- a practice that coincided with their addition of much of the Sony and RCA  archives.