Preface to the Third Edition

When I first made this document available via the Internet I could hardly have
been prepared for the response - or the commitment I was making to my
readers. While this is undoubtedly gratifying, it also makes the task of
preparing a new edition even more of a responsibility.

For this new edition, the first to be specifically targeted at the World Wide
Web, I have expanded the survey in several ways:

    By adding a short biographical note.
    By adding biographical context for each work.
    By including recommendations for the major song cycles.
    By giving thumbnail reviews of newer recordings, many of which in
    previous editions would simply have been ignored.

My ultimate goal is to produce a document which will at least mention most, if
not all (and that probably is a mere pipe-dream) of the recordings commonly
available.

Given the physical near-impossibility of even hearing all available (and
unavailable) recordings, and in view of the periodic surveys by others, both on
the Internet and in magazines, one might wonder why I bother to spend the
time updating this.

One is not alone in wondering that, for the thought has crossed my mind on
more than one occasion. My ultimate justification - both to myself and to the
reader - is not that my taste is somehow superior to others, nor that I
somehow understand Mahler's unique vision better; rather I believe that I can
fulfill a purpose because:

  1.I do have a considerable amount of listening experience under my belt
    when it comes to Mahler recordings, and
  2.I do, at least, bring a consistent point of view to the works, something
    which surveys by popular acclaim seldom, if ever, do.

If you read through this document and decide that consistency is not my
strong point, that what I seem to admire in A's recording of work B does not
appeal to me in C's recording of work D, then all I can say is that such
inconsistency is probably, at least in part, due to the way each piece affects
me. (I can also point out that humans are generally fallible and inconsistent
anyway - but then you already knew that).

This, the third edition, follows the second after a gap of almost three years. It
was originally my intention to produced biennial revisions of both this and my
Beethoven symphony survey, but there have been other calls on my time -
most notably a discography of one of my personal nominees for greatest
Mahler conductor of the century, Jascha Horenstein (whose own page will be
appearing "real soon now" ) - which made that impossible to achieve in this
instance.

This is the first edition of this survey to have been marked up in hypertext
form from its inception (and a useful learning experience it has been), and
some of the format changes stem directly from that, in particular (although I
don't really approve of shortcuts) the First Choice sections.

It has been said that one should never describe as Web page as being "under
construction", because, by its very nature, the Web itself is always changing.
In keeping with this philosophy, and in order to reach a point at which I can
release this revision of the survey, I am establishing a cutoff date of 31
December 1995, although it has become increasingly obvious that I shall not
actually manage to get the thing finished by that point.

The most obviously incomplete area is that of the song-cycles. I had intended
to give them the same sort of coverage in this new edition as the symphonies.
This gap will be closed over the coming months.

Readers who wish to monitor the changes can subscribe to one of the
Web-monitoring robots which will inform them when the page changes. There
will probably be no more complete revisions of this survey, merely incremental
changes and revisions.

In this way I hope not only to expand the survey with new recordings, but to
put thumbnail reviews in place for many of the older recordings which were
either mentioned briefly or more or less completely ignored in previous
revision.

My thanks are due to the many individuals who have contributed suggestions
for improvements to this document. I am especially grateful to Felix Yen and
Frank Forman for tracking down and supplying me with two rare recordings of
the First Symphony (by Barbirolli and Rosbaud respectively - volunteers who
have good second-hand record store connections please contact me!), and to
my good friend Martin Monkman for the many stimulating discussions we
have had as preparation for our radio review programme which ran on
CFUV-FM in Victoria for several years - and for all the fun times we have had
playing rock and roll together.

Finally, my thanks go to my readers who constantly keep my interest in this
survey alive, with their compliments and criticisms. Thank you all for your
feedback, for your encouragement, and especially - to those who have mailed
me asking "when will it appear?" - for your patience.

Ultimately, though, as is stated above, this is a personal view and all the
opinions stated herein are solely my own.

A final note: if you are a record company representative reading this and noting
that some of your Mahler recordings are neither included in the main text nor in
the discography, I shall be happy to receive review copies.



Preface to the Second Edition

This section is left in here for those with a historical bent.

This survey was originally written in December 1990, and revised a couple of
months later. It was written for the monthly magazine of CFUV-FM in
Victoria, BC to be published in conjunction with a cycle of Mahler
symphonies which I intended to play on my weekly radio show. The title of the
series was 'The Great Mahler Conductors' It was also written at a time of
considerable emotional turmoil in my own life: appropriately enough, as Mahler
is the composer I tend to turn to most at such times.

Since the article was originally written several events have occurred which
make we now wish to revise it: firstly the flood of Mahler recordings has
hardly abated. Secondly there have been a considerable number of reissues (or
first-time issues) of historic Mahler performances by major figures of the
recent (and not-so-recent) past.

Even though I have continued to acquire Mahler recordings I feel that their
sheer volume is beginning to overwhelm me, I have not - and probably never
will - have heard all the available recordings of Mahler's works. Considering
that only a few years ago I had heard every single recording ever made of the
6th, for example, indeed owned the majority of them, this situation is both
rewarding and alarming.

Mahler's star has never been higher - witness not just the number of
recordings, but also performances: I visited London (England) for four weeks
in 1992; during that period alone there were performances in London of the
1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th symphonies. I just missed the 9th by a few
days. There was also another performance of the 8th in Brighton (50 miles
away) during the same period . The London performance of the 8th,
incidentally, was given by the Kent County Youth (sic) Orchestra.

So - please take this in the spirit in which it is written. I have lived with and
loved the music of Mahler for over 30 years; I believe him to be possibly the
most important and influential composer since Beethoven. This work is not
definitive, it is a reflection of my own opinions. I know many people out there
agree with them, I'm sure that many don't. If you are familiar with any of the
recordings I recommend - or dislike - you'll get a feeling for how your tastes
and mine coincide - or fail to.