As with all Mahler, there are many fine and many not so fine recordings -- and each has people who will swear by it. My knowledge pretty much extends only to the first decade of the Mahler revival -- which in the case of the 8th begins with Bernstein's Royal Albert Hall recording, and includes Solti, Kubelik, Haitinck, and Abravanel. None is bad, but their's a solo passage in the Faust section of Solti's that makes my heart soar. Your mileage may vary.l

 

Boulez and Gielen are the best two I've heard. Gielen's Mahler 8 maybe?

 

I've recently really enjoyed listening to Gielen's cycle, despite some real eccentricities, but thought his 8 was a bit short of octane. Not a patch on his earlier Sony recording!

I am going to be predictable and nominate Solti for No.8. Sinopoli is very good too, as is Tennstedt.

 

In my very humble opinion as a listener rather than a music critic, I'd suggest either the 1969 Wyn Morris / Symphonica of London recording on IMP Classics (Pickwick), or the 2005 Antoni Wit / Polish National Philharmonic recording on Naxos.
Both have a full and wide sound quality, and pretty good soloists.

 

I recently heard Haitink's Mahler 8 for the first time. His Mahler rarely stands out for me but his lyrical approach to 8 seemed an excellent solution to the work's weaknesses. But it is not a symphony I have spent a lot of time listening to.

 

I want to know what are the best recordings of Symphonies- 2,5,6,and 9. I'll purchase the ones most often recommended.

 

I want to know what are the best recordings of Symphonie- 2,5,6,and 9. I'll purchase the ones most often recommended.

I'll leave out 2 because it is complicated. Slightly historical live recordings rule the roost (Klemperer, Barbirolli).
5 - Bernstein's later recording (with VPO) is excellent. So is Jansons (both are good but perhaps the live Concertgebouw is better). Frank Shipway with the RPO is also a good one.
6 - Again Bernstein's later recording (again with VPO) is great but it is a pretty grueling reading. And (again) Jansons - this time maybe the LSO Live recording. Then there is Boulez, Pappano, Thomas Sanderling and Mitropoulos ... all more than merely good!
9 - Alphabetically: Ancerl, Boulez, Klemperer, Maderna, Walter (1938): there are many others but these seem to deliver something extra-special.

 

There is no best recording except maybe the one that registers the most within you. There are many wonderful recordings of Mahler's 8th.

Personally I would probably give these 3 a listen as you will get 3 very different readings that are all very acceptable ways to perform the work:

Bernstein/London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus/1966
Gielen/Opernbaus und Museumorchester Frankfurt/1981 LIVE
Solti/Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Chorus/1971

Perhaps one of them will resonate with you more than the others but I find all 3 perfectly acceptable as top tier recommendations.

 

My favorite Mahler recordings are Willem Mengelberg's of the 4th symphony and the adagietto of the 5th, made in the 1920s and '30s. They're the nearest we can come to Mahler himself, and they show how terrified we are of real Romantic music-making, as opposed to the self-indulgent wallowing that Bernstein told us was Mahler. Try this on for size:

 

Is that fair? Bernstein certainly could be self-indulgent but his best recordings - and there are a great many of them - have plenty of control and discipline and are superbly paced. Like every other conductor (including those who knew Mahler) he followed his own interpretive star. You may not like his style but I don't think playing the inauthentic card is the best way to represent that. How much of Bernstein's Mahler have you heard?

 

Kiril Kondrashin isn't often associated with Mahler, but he should be. His 6th on Hannsler is astonishing. Ferocious, tragic, exciting...it has it all. A great reading equal to any. His 7th from Amsterdam is also top-drawer.

For the 5th, Hans Rosbaud's early recording is tops, too. Brilliantly played and conducted. Someone mentioned Wyn Morris in the 8th - I concur. The 9th in Karajan's second recording is the one to beat as far as I'm concerned. In the last movement at the climax it is so intense you can hear the rosin flying out of your speakers. The 10th is a toss up between Chailly (Decca) or Rattle (EMI).

The 1st: Maazel/Vienna. I'm not kidding. It's a great, great recording.
For the 2nd, I want great sound and a fine performance and the two I listen to the most are Blomstedt with San Francisco and Yoel Levi in Atlanta on Telarc. The 3rd - Lopez-Cobos on Telarc. Perfect in every way. For the 4th it's Szell on Sony or Reiner on RCA. DLVDE: Reiner again.

For a one-conductor set that's cheap and gets through the cycle without a dud, and many top-choice recordings: Bertini on EMI. Great sound, great playing, great conducting.

 

For a one-conductor set that's cheap and gets through the cycle without a dud, and many top-choice recordings: Bertini on EMI. Great sound, great playing, great conducting.

Yep, good shout for one conductor cycle, mbhaub (especially in the first 5).

 

I don't think I have truly heard enough Mahler recordings to really chime in (although I love the live Karajan 9th performance) but this may be of interest https://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/top-10-mahler-symphony-recordings. I've found it to be a good starting point for what recording to get.

 

This is partly a repeat of my recent post on another Mahler thread but...

Over recent years I have come to value the most those recordings which come from live performances. While they may not be the most technically immaculate, they have an extra frisson which studio recordings rarely achieve. Based on that, my recommendations. I will only list those that are commercially available but there are also some great performances to be found on YouTube, Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall, and other similar places.

#2 - Otto Klemperer / Bavarian Radio Symphony

#3 }- Klaus Tennstedt / London Philharmonic (not to be confused with his studio recording)
}- Sir John Barbirolli / Halle Orchestra

#6 - Sir John Barbirolli / New Philharmonia (not his studio recording but a Proms performance available on Testament)

#8 }- Gustavo Dudamel / combined Los Angeles Philharmonic & Simon Bolivar Orchestras, available as a DVD
}- Jascha Horenstein / London Symphony

 

George Szell’s tremendous Mahler 6 with the Cleveland Orchestra is also a live recording and one only has to reverse the order of the middle two movements to have it conform to the only order Mahler played them in. One can burn one’s own disc.

 

Oskar Fried was also a Mahler associate. But Fried´s recordings are very poor sonically.

And there´s F. Charles Adler, who studied with Mahler. His recordings have good sound, but his style is rather subdued.

Hermann Scherchen knew Fried and played Mahler under him, but Scherchen tends to vary his approach to tempi etc., the Adagietto has very varying timings in his recordings for example, and his Toronto 7th is different from his others.

 

I have to put in a plug for my all time favourite recording of M2:
Heather Harper, Helen Watts / London Symphony Orchestra / Georg Solti.

 

For #8....Solti/CSO is the top for me.

 

I've done 2, 5, 6, 8 and 9. That leaves 1, 3 and 7.

1 - there are lots of good 1s but, of the ten or so I know well, Ancerl, Jansons (Concertgebouw), Boulez and Solti (LSO) have stood out.
3 - Horenstein and Jansons have stood out for me. There are one or two highly recommended accounts that I have not heard.
7 - Gielen and Jansons have stood out.

 

I did a Mahler survey last year and posted the results in an earlier thread. Here they are again:

I separate each work into two categories: Essential Recordings and Additional Listening.

A recording I consider an all-time great recording is followed with a ♫. (my version of a Penguin Rosette)

The recording that represents the best choice for sound quality and performance combined is followed with a ◄.

I ranked them within each category without regard to sound quality. Performance only. I assume people can decide for themselves whether a recording is too old or not. My task was to judge the performance.

Symphony No. 1 ('Titan')

Essential Recordings:

Bruno Walter (1939) (Music & Arts) ♫
F. Charles Adler (Tahra)
Sir John Barbirolli (Dutton) ◄
Rafael Kubelik (DG)
Leonard Bernstein (DG)

Additional Listening:

Bruno Walter (1954 live) (Urania), Dmitri Mitropoulos (1940) (Sony, Enterprise), Ernest Borsamsky (Forgotten Records), Hermann Scherchen (MCA), Rafael Kubelik (1979) (Audite), Bruno Walter (1954 studio) (Sony), Jascha Horenstein (1970) (Unicorn)

Symphony No. 2 ('Resurrection')

Essential Recordings:

John Barbirolli (1970) (EMI Great Conductors) ♫
Otto Klemperer (1965 live) (EMI)
Otto Klemperer (1962) (EMI) ◄
Zubin Mehta (Decca)
Simon Rattle (EMI)

Additional Listening:

Otto Klemperer (1951) (Decca, Guild, Archipel, Verona), Bruno Walter (1948 NYPO) (Bruno Walter Society, Music in the Mail), Hermann Scherchen (1959) (MCA), Leopold Stokowski (BBC), Leonard Bernstein (1963) (Sony), Bruno Walter (1957) (Music & Arts)

Symphony No. 3

Essential Recordings:

F. Charles Adler (1952 studio) (Harmonia Mundi, Music & Arts)
Jascha Horenstein (Unicorn) ◄
Sir John Barbirolli (1969) (BBC)
Leonard Bernstein (Sony)

Additional Listening:

Dmitri Mitropoulos (1960) (Tahra, ICA, Archipel), Claudio Abbado (1982) (DG), Bernhard Haitink (1966) (Philips), Hermann Scherchen (1950) (Tahra), Rafael Kubelik (Audite), James Levine (RCA)

Symphony No. 4

Essential Recordings:

Jo Vincent/Willem Mengelberg (Philips, Grammofono, Dante Lys, Iron Needle) ♫
Heather Harper/Sir John Barbirolli (BBC)
Hilde Güden/Bruno Walter (1955) (DG, Andromeda)
Margaret Price/Jascha Horenstein (CfP) ◄

Additional Listening:

Irmgard Seefried/Bruno Walter (1950) (MCA, Orfeo, Tahra), Irmgard Seefried/Bruno Walter (1953) (Tahra, Music & Arts), Emmy Loose/Paul Kletzki (EMI), Judith Raskin/George Szell (Sony), Kathleen Battle/Lorin Maazel (Sony), Elisabeth Schwarzkopf/Otto Klemperer (EMI), Lucia Popp/Klaus Tennstedt (EMI)

Symphony No. 5

Essential Recordings:

Sir John Barbirolli (EMI) ♫ ◄
Jascha Horenstein (Pristine)
Frank Shipway (RPO)
Rudolf Schwarz (Everest)
Leonard Bernstein (DG)

Additional Listening:

Václav Neumann (1967) (Philips, Brilliant Classics), Bruno Walter (Sony), Hermann Scherchen (1953) (Westminster), Dmitri Mitropoulos (Music & Arts), Hermann Scherchen (1962) (Stradivarius, Living Stage), Rafael Kubelik (1951) (Tahra), Rudolf Barshai (Brilliant Classics), James Levine (1978) (RCA), Klaus Tennstedt (1988), Claudio Abbado (DG), Herbert von Karajan (DG)

Symphony No. 6

Essential Recordings:

Sir John Barbirolli (EMI) ♫ ◄
Eduard van Beinum (Tahra)
Leonard Bernstein (DG)

Additional Listening:

Jascha Horenstein (1969) (BBC), Sir John Barbirolli (Testament), Dmitri Mitropoulos (1955) (Archipel, NYPO), Hermann Scherchen (1961) (Tahra), Leonard Bernstein (Sony), Herbert von Karajan (DG), Thomas Sanderling (Real Sound)

Symphony No. 7

Essential Recordings:

Otto Klemperer (EMI) ♫ ◄
Jascha Horenstein (Music & Arts, BBC)
Hermann Scherchen (1965) (Music & Arts)
Claudio Abbado (1984) (DG)

Additional Listening:

Kirill Kondrashin (1975) (Melodiya), Sir John Barbirolli (BBC, Barbirolli Society), Leonard Bernstein (DG), Sir Simon Rattle (EMI), Daniel Barenboim (Warner)

Symphony No. 8 ('Symphony of a thousand')

Essential Recordings:

Jascha Horenstein (BBC) ♫
Dmitri Mitropoulos (Orfeo, Music & Arts)
Leonard Bernstein (DG) ◄
Georg Solti (Decca)

Additional Listening:

Wyn Morris (Pickwick), Hermann Scherchen (Tahra), Leopold Stokowski (1950) (Archipel, United Classics), Eduard Flipse (RPO, Scribendum), Claudio Abbado (1995) (DG), Klaus Tennstedt (EMI), Giuseppe Sinopoli (DG)

Symphony No. 9

Essential Recordings:

Sir John Barbirolli (1960) (IDIS, Archipel) ♫
Sir John Barbirolli (EMI) ◄
Bruno Walter (EMI, Dutton)
Herbert von Karajan (1982) (DG)
Otto Klemperer (EMI)
Jascha Horenstein (1966) (Music & Arts)

Additional Listening:

Kirill Kondrashin (Melodiya), Karel Ancerl (Supraphon), Leonard Bernstein (1979), Sir Simon Rattle (2007) (EMI), Jascha Horenstein (1953) (Vox), Bernard Haitink (Philips), Bruno Walter (Sony), Carlo Maria Giulini (DG)

Kindertotenlieder

Essential Recordings:

Kathleen Ferrier/Bruno Walter (EMI) ♫
Janet Baker/Sir John Barbirolli (EMI) ◄
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau/Rudolf Kempe (EMI)

Additional Listening:

Kathleen Ferrier/Otto Klemperer (Decca), Janet Baker/Leonard Bernstein (Sony), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau/Karl Böhm (DG), Kirsten Flagstad/Sir Adrian Boult (Decca), Christa Ludwig/André Vandernoot (EMI)

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen

Essential Recordings:

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau/Wilhelm Furtwängler (EMI)
Janet Baker/Sir John Barbirolli (EMI) ◄

Additional Listening:

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau/Rafael Kubelik (DG), Kirsten Flagstad/Sir Adrian Boult (Decca), Christa Ludwig/Sir Adrian Boult (EMI)

Rückert-Lieder

Essential Recordings:

Janet Baker/Sir John Barbirolli (EMI) ◄

Additional Listening:

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau/Karl Böhm (DG), Christa Ludwig/Otto Klemperer (EMI)

Das klagende Lied

Essential Recordings:

Gennadi Rozhdestvensky (IMP, ICA) ◄
Sir Simon Rattle (EMI)

Additional Listening:

Wyn Morris (IMP, Nimbus), Riccardo Chailly (Decca)

Des knaben Wunderhorn

Essential Recordings:

Felix Prohaska (Vanguard) ◄

Additional Listening:

George Szell (EMI), Wyn Morris (IMP)

Das Lied von der Erde

Essential Recordings:

Kathleen Ferrier/Julius Patzak/Bruno Walter (live) (Tahra, Andromeda) ♫
Kathleen Ferrier/Julius Patzak/Bruno Walter (studio) (Decca) ♫
Kersten Thorborg/Carl Martin Ohman/Carl Schuricht (Minerva)
Alfreda Hodgson/John Mitchinson/Jascha Horenstein (BBC)
Janet Baker/Waldemar Kmentt/Rafael Kubelik (Audite)
Christa Ludwig/Fritz Wunderlich/Otto Klemperer (EMI) ◄

Additional Listening:

Kathleen Ferrier/Sir John Barbirolli (APR, Dutton), Kersten Thorborg/Charles Kullmann/Bruno Walter (Dutton, Naxos), Janet Baker/John Mitchinson/Raymond Leppard (BBC), Maureen Forester/Richard Lewis/Bruno Walter (Music & Arts), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau/Murray Dickie/Paul Kletzki (EMI), Brigitte Fassbaender/Francisco Arraiza/Carlo Maria Giulini (Testament), Nan Merriman/Ernt Haefliger/Eduard van Beinum (Philips), Janet Baker/James King/Bernhard Haitink (Philips)

 

I did a Mahler survey last year and posted the results in an earlier thread. Here they are again:

A good list: I take exception only to the Barbirolli recordings of 5, 6 and 9. True, 5 is a lovely recording and I am not sure any horn player has equalled Nick Busch in the Scherzo but I don't think Barbirolli succeeds in the last movement, which seems hard work. Barbirolli's 6th has good qualities but the slow trudging speeds in the first and the second/third (depending on your preference) movements are eccentric. Barbirolli's 9th is poorly recorded and I think there are better options these days. All three earn a place on any list but I don't think they should have first place! I wouldn't normally have posted my disagreement but I do so as an ardent fan (of Barbirolli and those Mahler recordings), and I thought that might excuse me!

 

Rogner's 3rd is also very good, and he has some unusual ideas. The sound is splendid.

I agree with previous remarks on Kondrashin; his 9th is intense, but not too sentimental, and a relative classicism in that work can be balmy.

For Das Lied I like Bernstein/Israel PO, not an orchestra I'm usually a fan of, but everything works in that recording IMO, and I'd generally prefer it to Klemperer/EMI.

For the complete 10th, Rattle's early EMI and Wigglesworth/BBC.

 

Szell's is my least overrated 4th. I consider it one of the few perfect recordings I've ever heard of anything, and quite idiomatic of the composer. I would never recommend that it not be heard, even if it's not one's first choice of a 4th. I have never found it to lack heart and beauty, but that is one of the rote criticisms of Szell, no matter whether ever true or not.

As much as I love Barbirolli's Mahler performances, I do not care for his 9th. It is too dark and depressing. It robs Mahler of all hope unlike like Bruno Walter's tremendous performance of the 9th with the CSO, and just about any other performance I've heard. I do not believe that the composer meant for bleakness, and that's how I feel that Barbirolli's interpreted this great symphony, and consequently I've never wanted to hear his recording again... There was no sense that Mahler was capable of any kind of emotional resilience to bounce back and overcome despair. But he did countless times in his life, and went on to write his 10th.

 

I like Inbal's Mahler cycles.

(His first one on Denon (Frankfurt) and also his second (Prague & Tokio) and third cycles (Tokio) on the Exton sacd label.)

 

Suggestions are going to be all over the place. I would suggest listening on a streaming service until you hear what you like.

#2- I like Kaplan and Bernstein
#4- Nanut and Abravenel
#5 - Boulez and Shipway
#6- Bernstein, Boulez, Herbig
#9- Boulez and Nott

That said, if you want a complete set on download that is well worth listening to, try Abravenel's Utah Symphony set for $. 75. Available from Classics Select.

 

#4. Anton Nanut. What a wonderful gentleman. I met him 20 years ago or so when he was guest conducting the local orchestra. He had a old-world style about him that was irresistible. Humble, pleasant, and completely dedicated to music. I have his Mahler 6th, which is quite fine, too. One of those great unknown conductors who was thoroughly professional and because of where he lived and the time he lived in was widely overlooked. I am very glad to have met him and heard him - even once - live. And your mention of his 4th is very pleasing.

 

It seems a lot of us are in agreement on Shipway for #5. It is a formidable reading. My love for the Barbirolli is partly based on how well it holds together structurally, but Shipway provides higher octane no doubt. It may well be the top overall recommendation.

#6 is the reading where I really find Barbirolli unparalleled, followed closely by his recordings of #9 (of which I prefer the earlier account on IDIS despite the poorer sound from a live recording).

I know it is not a popular opinion amongst Mahlerians, but HvK's live 1982 9th needs to be at least heard once. It is overwhelming at times, with pacing that is just right. Just slightly missing the more vulnerable, human quality you get with Barbirolli and Walter.

 

Shipway's M5 is very good but I do think his relative obscurity gives our response to it a bit of a boost. There are a few that are as good.

 

One can become too fussy. My earliest is Nonesuch LP of Sym. 1, Horenstein, LSO. It's all there!

 

I still have that one, and his M3 on the same label. Both very fine

 

I've been listening to my Simon Rattle cycle. I'm on Symphony 6.