Finally, some love for Boulez. A nice change of approach compared to most. Mahler more than any other composer I can think of can be performed/interpreted in a wide variety of ways and still give me everything I listen to Mahler for.
I've been buying Mahler Symphonies since 1972 when a record store salesman recommended I start my indoctrination with #2 by Ormandy and Philadelphia on RCA LP which had just been released at that time. Managed to get a copy of the Japanese CD re-mastering of that recording done in 2003, recently.
I find it difficult to pick just one performance of any one of his symphonies or Das Lied and say I can live happily without the rest, (#8 excepted as I've never been able to muster much enthusiasm for it).
I find myself enjoying Boulez, he gets excellent engineering that allows me to hear into the complexities of the scoring, (as does Tennstedt with LSO). Both get great balances from the orchestra to allow horn details to come through better than most and yet both have very different, even opposing ways of performing Mahler.
I've got most of Rattle most of Bernstein (2 different sets) Haitinks original analogues with the Concertgebouw, and dozens of incomplete sets and one offs by VK, Abbado, Barshai, Levi, and on and on. And I continue to investigate with Chailly, Gergiev, and anyone else who attempts Mahler.
When I'm in the mood for a 5th that's ridden hard and put away wet, I like Solti/Chicago with a horn chorale return in the finale of the fifth movement worthy of the second coming followed by some exciting, run amok, closing bars.
For a more relaxed approach with subtlety of detail and the best handling of tempos in the difficult second movement, Barbirolli.
His closing doesn't provide me with quite the level of excitement I want but everything else is so right.
Again, for listening into the score, Tennstedt and Boulez.
I've just started looking into Chailly, and Gergiev.
There's much to be said for Walter, Klemperer and Horenstein too! Whenever I spin one of these old veterans I come away thinking, wow, that's much better than I remember.
It all depends on my mood. And when the moon is full and my OCD is peaking I love to pick just one of his symphonies and listen to all the versions I have, comparing performances over several days.
Surprisingly, or maybe not so, one conductor who's not, to my knowledge, recorded any Mahler symphonies and who I've seen live delivering amazing performances is Charles Dutoit. I think it was 2 or 3 years ago here in Philly I saw him do Mahler 3 and it was an experience I'm glad I did not miss. Many years ago he did a Mahler 5 I will never forget; with just 3 bars to go the baton slipped from his hand, arched up to the right of the second violins, and hung as if suspended for a fraction of a second before arching downward. You could hear the entire audience sucking air for a brief instant as the baton hit the peak of its arc, simultaneously, the first horn lets it all hang out at that point with 3 bars left and before the baton hit the floor, the orchestra didn't miss a beat, the applause was deafening.