Hello Steve

And thank you for taking the time to contribute here on the MB, as well as your kind words about my Mahler Symphony 1 Conspectus (see: https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2022/Feb/Mahler-sy1-survey-LD.pdf ).

The Bruno Walter live recording you reference is indeed remarkable for many reasons - so different to the later official recordings, either from New York with the Philharmonic's powerhouse brass in resplendent form, or the warmth and humane stereo remake with the Columbia Symphony, both equally fine and valid interpretations. Instead, with the NBC Symhony orchestra playing out of their skins, we are presented with a fiery interpretation of huge volatility. And yet this is the earliest existing recording of the work, performed by a conductor who knew the composer and probably witnessed Mahler conducting the symphony too .... maybe it's the truest reading of all to Mahler's intentions. Out of 250 recordings considered in the survey, this was probably the biggest surprise of all, along with Ernest Borsamky's in 1949 ("who?" you say - exactly:



So thank you for alerting us that the Walter/NBC is now in such good sound and agree that, sometimes, the transfers achieved by Youtube sonic wizards exceed that of the "professionals". I'm not sure if those type of transfers could be considered by music journals like MusicWeb Int as anything more than a footnote to a review (for example, Schmidt-Isserstedt's VPO Beethoven Symphony cycle sounds astonishing in its Youtube garb), but since you can also download these performances now via a subscription to the site, you never know ....