# 100 Favorites: # 49



## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

*Mahler: Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection"
Bruno Walter, New York Philharmonic O, Westminster Choir, Maureen Forrester, Emilia Cundari (Sony)*










If I were forced to chose one favorite symphony, I just might pick Mahler's Second. So this work is very special to me. Fortunately, there are many superb recordings of this work -- and many interpretive viewpoints. I think Hermann Scherchen's scrappy, hell-bent for leather account with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra is one of the best. Likewise, Leonard Bernstein's glittering, exultant account with the NYPO (on DG) is almost blinding brilliant. But this Bruno Walter recording has always struck me as one that's uniquely inspired. I suppose it's a cliché to say that Walter's music conveys a warmth, a sense of humanity, that you rarely hear with other conductors. But even if it is a cliché, that's what I hear on this recording. With Walter's interpretation, there's always a living, breathing individual person at the center of the picture -- even when Mahler's musical canvas is cosmically vast. Another analogy: Walter manages to capture the paradoxical feeling that some cathedrals inspire when, upon entering them, you vividly experience the contradictory sensations of close intimacy and dark vastness at the same time.

This 2-CD set also includes Walter's recording of the M1 and the _Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen_ with the Columbia SO (and Mildred Miller in the _LefG_). These are very fine performances, but neither of them reach the exalted level of Walter's "Resurrection."


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## opus55 (Nov 9, 2010)

My first Mahler symphony recording.


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