So here we are, nearly 30 years on, with Bernstein no less, if anything more, in awe of the movement, communicating still an overwhelming sense of its transcendental reverence, and coming, what's more, to within five seconds of his previous timing over a duration of some 25 minutes. The courageous breadth of line (only Abbado on DG has since taken a comparable overview), the sustained intensity, the nobility, the inwardness-this is quite simply one of the finest pieces of Mahler conducting in my recollection. To this day, I have regarded Bernstein's handling of the last movement alone-that majestic D major hymn to life and love-as the model against which all others must be measured. For me too, that particular recording made an immeasurable and lasting impression. 'This is the first time I have ever heard Bernstein conduct Mahler, and I certainly hope that it will not be the last.' So wrote the late Deryck Cooke in these pages in December 1962 of this very symphony. In the first movement we do not get genuinely quiet playing from the horns at 9'30' whereupon the active part of the development is rather untidily thrust upon us. The orchestral contribution is very good even if absolute precision isn’t guaranteed. The finale now seems sonically a little thin, with the trumpets made to sound rather hard-pressed and the final climax failing to open out as it can in more modern recordings. Notwithstanding a fondness for generally brisk tempos in Mahler, Kubelik is never afraid of rubato here, above all in his very personally inflected account of the slow movement. Strange, then, that he should ignore the single repeat sign in the Landler when he seems so at ease with the music. Unlike Walter, Kubelik takes the repeat of the first movement’s short exposition. Bruno Walter was, he felt, Kubelik’s only rival in this regard and he was much taken with the “natural delicacy and purity” of the interpretation. On the first appearance of the symphony in 1968, Deryck Cooke observed that Rafael Kubelik was “essentially a poetic conductor and he gets more poetry out of this symphony than any of the other conductors who have recorded it”.

That said, the packaging is first-rate and the notes interesting and thoughtful. This distinguished coupling has already been available at bargain price so its appearance in The Originals livery comes as something of a surprise.

Torrent Mahler Complete Edition