Can I just add my own experience to Michael Bullivant's comment about the need for relevant information to 'explain' what the composers were trying to do.
In the winter of 1964/65, one term of meeting new friends at university had convinced me that 'classical music' might be be worth exploring in addition to the pop and, more recently, jazz which made up most of my very limited musical knowledge.
One day in a suburban Birmingham newsagants/stationers, which also sold a few gramophone records 'on the side', almost entirely pop or easy listening. I came across a very cheap 'sale copy' of the Klemperer Mahler 4 with Schwarzkopf singing. Once I got it home I discovered that, even in the very limited space on an LP sleeve, Columbia had given us the German text, and an English translation, of what was sung in the final movement together with a very helpful sleeve note by William Mann (who, though I didn't know it then, was the chief music critic of The Times). The one thing I specifically remember from his note was him pointing out that, when the poem says that 'no music on earth can compare with ours' (i.e. the angels), Mahler does his very best to come up with something that gets pretty close!! That, and of course much of the rest of the LP, was enough to convince me that Mahler was worth exploring further.
William Mann's sleeve notes for Klemperer's Mahler 2 - which I acquired at full price a little later on - were also a great help to me in understanding that work.
My next Mahler LP was also bought very cheap in a sale (this time in a central Birmingham department store!) - the HMV 'Concert Classics' disc of Fischer-Dieskau singing the 'Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen' (with Furtwangler) and 'Kindertotenlieder' (with Kempe) and, even though this was already a 'bargain Label'- recycling previously issued recordings, someone at HWV had had the wisdom to use most of the space on the sleeve to give us the full texts (and English translations) of both works. I was so grateful to them as, without those,! do not think I would have got to know and love those works as well as I have.
It is easy to forget, in these Internet days, how difficult it was, in the 60s, to obtain texts and translations of Lieder (and opera librettos) if the record companies didn't give them to you. A little further along my Mahler 'Odyssey' I felt the need to find out about 'Das Lied von der Erde' and I was advised that the recording to go for was the Ferrier/Walter one. At that time, that was a full price Decca LP but no texts were enclosed with it and, without them, I just could not get to grips with this 'strange' work at all. It was only a couple of years later, when Klemperer's recording was issued, and DID include texts and translations, that the wonders of that work became clear to me.
If you are referring to this one, Jeffrey, then not only would I hope that you will find it far from poor but as I remark in my review of it, Tony Duggan considered it to be a "benchmark recording"! (- and now you can have it in improved sound from HDTT)
https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2022/Sep/Mahler-wunderhorn-4482.htm
No, John, I didn't know that. It was the first recording I had of Mahler 8 and have acquired several versions since that time which are certainly better recorded. Although I've ditched many of my "First acquaintance" recordings (Scherchen 2, Kubelik 1 Adler 3, Rosbaud 7 come to mind ) I've kept the Flipse. Philips Classical Favourites Lps have a special nostalgia for me; they were well-produced, the covers were sturdy and they were usually adorned with very attractive colour photographs. A lot of them formed the basis of my collection. Lord knows how many were issued but I'm continually coming across new(to me) ones in charity/ 2nd-hand vinyl shops. Another Mahler issue on the label (apart from the well-known Walter 4 ) was of Des Knaben Wunderhorn; the conductor I think was Prohaska but the singers I seem to remember were quite poor. I still have it but it has been banished to a corner of my loft where it has languished, unplayed , for years.
Jeffrey, I don't know if you're aware that the Flipse Mahler 8 was issued on CD back in 2011. The recording was issued by the Rotterdam Philharmonic themselves. I'm not sure if it's still available but it would be worth checking out on the orchestra's website. I reviewed the recording here https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2011/Feb11/mahler68_rotterdam.htm
"it is surprising just how many of those pioneering recordings stand up today; I guess they were often real "events" and meticulously rehearsed under the best conductors."
Those who possess the Philips Classical Favourites LPs of Mahler 8 (a live recording under Eduard Flipse) will be familiar with the lengths the conductor took to obtain a recording that is free of extraneous noises including having traffic re-routed away from the concert hall and employing a team of men to chase pigeons off the roof of the building - a good job it was a day free of thunderstorms.
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