[Mink]

It is obvious I favour the same conductors overall. I ranked the recordings purely in order of playtime, which recording I listen the most, and these I simply like the best.
I certainly heard more interesting recordings, but more in an 'intellectual way" not more musically satisfying than the ones listed.
If I had to pick 1 favorite, a desert island disc it would be the Mahler 6 by Boulez, I love that recording!
 
Symphony N°1
Rafael Kubelik · Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (DG 1970) 
Leonard Bernstein · Concertgebouworkest (DG 1987)
Riccardo Chailly · Concertgebouworkest (Decca 1996)
 
Symphony N°2
Pierre Boulez · Staatskapelle Dresden (Live, Euroarts DVD 2007)
Rafael Kubelik · Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (DG 1969)
Bernard Haitink · Concertgebouworkest (Live, Philips 1984)
 
Symphony N°3
Bernard Haitink · Concertgebouworkest (Philips 1966)
Leonard Bernstein · New York Philharmonic (Sony 1962)
Bernard Haitink · Concertgebouworkest (Live, Philips 1983)
 
Symphony N°4
Rafael Kubelik · Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (DG 1970)
Bernard Haitink · Concertgebouworkest (Philips 1969)
Michael Gielen · SWR Sinfonieorchester (Hänsler 2003)
 
Symphony N°5
Bernard Haitink · Concertgebouworkest (Live, Philips 1986)
Pierre Boulez · Wiener Philharmoniker (DG 1996)
Rudolf Barshai · Junge Deutsche Philharmonie (Live, Brilliant Classics, 2001) 
 
Symphony N°6
Pierre Boulez · Wiener Philharmoniker (DG 1995)
Michael Gielen · SWR Sinfonieorchester (Hänsler 2002)
Leonard Bernstein · Wiener Philharmoniker (DG 1990)
 
Symphony N°7
Pierre Boulez · Cleveland Orchestra (DG 1996)
Bernard Haitink · Concertgebouworkest (Live, Philips 1985)
Leonard Bernstein · New York Philharmonic (Sony 1965)
 
Symphony N°8
Do not like this symphony
 
Symphony N°9
Bernard Haitink · Concertgebouworkest (Philips 1970)
Pierre Boulez · Chicago Symphony Orchestra (DG 1998)
Bernard Haitink · Concertgebouworkest (Live, Philips 1987)

 

[icebear]

Having bought the orig. early 90's (?) releases of Inbal on Denon of M1, M4, M5 and the first Kaplan M2, I didn't really catch on to Mahler.
 
Somehow I made it through most of this incredible thread, attracted acute Mahlerhitis and splurged big time ...

 
Bernstein on Sony (2012 SBM remaster), cycle
Bernstein M3 SACD
Walter cycle

Zinman Tonhalle Zurich SACD cycle

 
Kenneth Slowik, Smithsonian Chamber players

 
I haven't even started to listen to the CD's but I'll see my first Mahler symphonie live:
Mahler 7th , MTT with SFO in Carnegie Hall
 
I guess a little after the big anniversary now that things calmed down a bit is a good time for cycles.
Most of them I picked up for less than $30, what a bargain

.
 
On my further list :
Ivan Fischer & Budapest Festival Orch.
Chailly & Concertgebow
Barenboim M7, M9
Horenstein M3
Walter EMI '38
Th.Sanderling M6 (incredibly expensive!)

 

[mbhaub]

Great choices, overall. I loved the sound of the Zinman's, the overall quality is fine, but somehow the performances just miss the mark. Maybe it's a certain reticence or just the inability to let loose. The contrast of Zinman's 6th with Sanderling's tells the story. The latter is a great 6th, and I'm sure glad I got it when it first appeared when the price was sane.
 
Any Mahler fan must hear the Walter's. And the Bernstein's are mostly classic. I prefer his DG remakes in 1, 4, and 5. Sony should be ashamed of this set however: why oh why didn't they put together a complete Bernstein/Sony(Columbia) set of all of his Mahler? Why didn't they include the wonderful recording of the Wunderhorn lieder and Das Lied?
 
Horenstein's 3rd is still the one to beat even after all these years.

 

[icebear]

I am very curious about the Zinman cycle, for $27.99 (new) I just couldn't say no

.
Sometimes the strive for technical perfection comes in the way. You always have the impression there are still some stops that need to be pulled to let it all out.
 
I have a favorite Brahms violin concerto Antal Dorati, London S.O. Henryk Szeryng and all other interpretations give the "still holding back something" impression but the Szeryng performance for me is the ultimate "no strings attached"

version, high wire, full risk and succeed, I love it !!
 
Btw, I liked the live performance on Wednesday.
Without having listened to the 7th before my impression is pretty positive. MTT was able to hold the rhythm together very nicely across the various sections and the takeover from e.g. the horns to the flutes was amazing. Great acoustics for such a detailed/intricate orchestration and the SFO players were excellent from point of view. It seems the work can easily fall apart and loose connections, as there are some drastic changes in between. I guess you could easily end up pressing the stop button if you just hear a CD and then it will take quite en effort to ever go back. So I am glad to have attended a live performance which in my book was pretty good. But without any other reference point this is a little in a vacuum. I'll be on the look out for some professional review in the next days, maybe in NY Times.
 
Mahler rocks, if I may say so

 

[icebear]

Here some professional opinion on the Wednesday performance in Carnegie Hall :
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/22/arts/music/michael-tilson-thomas-and-san-francisco-symphony-at-carnegie-hall.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C{%222%22%3A%22RI%3A12%22}&_r=0
 
From NYT article above
By DAVID ALLENNOV. 21, 2014

This year the ingredients were much the same. It was Mahler again on Wednesday, this time the Seventh Symphony. On Thursday, the mesmerizing “Drift and Providence” finally had its New York premiere, prefacing Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto and Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloé.”
So much for expecting the unexpected.
Still, much of this partnership’s reputation rests on its consistently reliable recordings of Mahler’s symphonies. (Its Seventh won two Grammy Awards.) Even if the strings sounded lean and the winds a little shaky, the orchestral playing in Wednesday’s Mahler was communicative and idiomatic, and, rightly, the players received strong ovations. But to my surprise, given his pedigree, Mr. Thomas left me unconvinced.
The Seventh’s problem is the chirpy finale, a choppily episodic rondo that, in performance, rarely succeeds in clinching or negating what comes before. Mr. Thomas emphasized its vulgarity and its fragmentary nature but could not convince me that it all fit together. The scherzo underwhelmed too, its ghostly sides missing elements of the grotesque. And while the first movement’s structure was clear enough to sound like Haydn on acid, its momentum constantly seemed to ebb.
The two “Nachtmusik” movements worked better. In the first, the woodwinds played with enough character to evoke a spooky promenade of “things that go bump in the night.” Mr. Thomas’s balancing skill allowed even the guitar and mandolin to emerge naturally from the orchestral textures in the second. On the whole, though, this needed more sense of risk.

 

[mbhaub]

I've never been an MTT fan for his Mahler. I know there are admirers who think it's great, it just doesn't seem quite right to me. His earlier 7th with London was better than the SFO remake IMO. The only problem with the finale is a conductor who takes it too seriously. It's more Marx Bros than anything and needs a quick wit. The only recording I know of that gets it is the Kondrashin live with the Concertgebouw. The finale gets sails along and is so much fun! Maybe not what Mahler wrote, indicated or intended, but it works. I've heard the new Dudamel recording takes a similar tack. Herman Scherchen knew and loved the 7th, and his several recordings showed the way to play it, but I guess no one listened.

 

[icebear]

Are you referring to this recording from '79 ?
http://www.amazon.com/Mahler-Kondrashin-Kirill-Concertgebouw-Amsterdam/dp/B003EN2SD2/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1416777186&sr=1-1&keywords=mahler+7+kondrashin
 

 

[rasmushorn]

I bought this box in SACD's some weeks ago and I find the recordings and sound quality to be of the best I have heard. 
 
http://audaud.com/2012/12/mahler-complete-symphonies-adagio-from-sym-no-10-soloists-choirs-london-sym-orch-valery-gergiev-lso-live-10-sacds/
 

 

[mbhaub]

That's the one. Kondrashin did the 7th earlier with a Leningrad orchestra and the difference in interpretation over the 20 or so intervening years is amazing. Kondrashin was a great, under-used conductor. I saw him live once - at the Hollywood Bowl of all places.

 

[icebear]

I never saw him live but yesterday I heard his '58 recording of Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1, Van Cliburn at Carnegie Hall (RCA Living Stereo SACD).
I have no clue how they captured so much of the magic of this performance at that time.
This record is the next best thing to being there, spiritual, exceptional, emotional, great.
 
Back to topic

:
I'm on the fence of getting Kondrashin's Russian Mahler cycle but maybe I'll start with the recording above.

 

[GustavMahler]

Wow! 247 pages about me on head-fi! What an honor.
Also, I think listeting to Bruno Walter's recordings can be quite interesting, Since the two were close friends and Walter is affected by Mahler's interpetations of his own symphonies. 
Do you want to know how Mahler interpeted his own 5th symphony? Walla!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK8l47x6mVc

 

[mbhaub]

Couple of problems here. Yes, Walter knew and worked with Mahler. Heard him conduct many of the symphonies. So did Klemperer. And Mengelberg, Scherchen, and others. But their performances couldn't be more different. Compare Klemperer and Walter in symphonies 2,4, and 9 and Das Lied. Totally different conceptions. So how much did Mahler's performances really influence them? Or maybe they just forgot. Stokowski was there at the premier of the 8th with Mahler conducting, but I can't believe Mahler did it like Stoki.
 
As to the Mahler piano recordings...interesting to be sure, and as close to a live Mahler performance to be had. But the question remains just how accurate the Welte-Mignon reproducing player is. What is fascinating is that Mahler clearly takes quicker tempos than is the norm in the first movement of the 5th. Why? Was it some time limitation on the piano roll? or did Mahler really want it that quick? I think the latter is correct, as we do know, without question, that in previous eras, tempos on the whole were faster. In the 20th century conductors got slower and slower.

 

[GustavMahler]

Also the tempo Walter takes in the 3rd movement of the 9th is awfully slow, And i too find it hard to believe that Mahler wanted it that way. 
And as to Mahler's playing-How do we really know it is him playing? Just curious.

 

[mbhaub]

He was visiting the welte-Mignon factory in Leipzig in 1904 and made four recordings. He liked the idea. He was just in Berlin listening to Oskar Fried rehearse the 2nd, and was distraught about everything: the tempos were wrong, "too fast by half". So much for Fried's recording of the 2nd. Mahler complained about conductors "soaked in their own interpretations" and now would have a way to show what he wanted. The recordings may not be perfect, but provide at least some idea of what he wanted.
 
The best way to hear these recordings is on a cd from Golden Legacy (1993). It has all four of the Mahler recordings, then they add a vocalist to three of them. Quite interesting.

 

[icebear]

 ... just a thought here :
 
You can argue that the composer knows best and that only his interpretations is valid and correct and everything stops there as there can only be one "right" interpretation. Following that idealistic approach all performances and recordings would sound the same. Quite boring I guess.
 
The ideas of a composer are a reflection of his times and influences and moods/spirits and health at the time. If that was more than a hundred years ago, chances are that audiences are exposed to other influences and therefore preferences are quite different. What does it help, if only the composers intentions are followed to the T and nobody is listening?
 
I am more in favor of different "flavors" in performance.
It keeps the work fresh and there is enough variety for a lot of audiences to enjoy the score.