Every once in a while, an awesome recording of a difficult and complex Mahler symphony shows up right out of left field. This is one of them.

This is the first disc to be made in Budapest’s new National Concert Hall where the orchestra recently staged a Mahler festival in celebration of the composer’s local connections. Notwithstanding the change of venue and the extra forces deployed, it is very much a typical Budapest Festival production, lithe and alert, without necessarily sounding what older hands may think of as Mahlerian…

Mahler’s Sixth Symphony features both contrast and controversy. While it’s his darkest, he composed it at high point in his life. Conductors often quarrel over the correct order of the movements…

Few conductors turn in tightly controlled and coherent renditions of Gustav Mahler's sprawling Symphony No. 7 in E minor, "Song of the Night," and it often comes across either as a jumble of ironic distortions or as a strange riddle that needs to be deciphered.
It would hardly seem as direct and powerful as its predecessor, the Symphony No. 6 in A minor, "Tragic," which most conductors take at face value and Few conductors turn in tightly controlled and coherent renditions of Gustav Mahler's sprawling Symphony No. 7 in E minor, "Song of the Night," and it often comes across either as a jumble of ironic distortions or as a strange riddle that needs to be deciphered.

"The five songs that follow the performance of the Fourth Symphony (two from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and three from the Rückert-Lieder) date from the time of the Klemperer/Ludwig Das Lied von der Erde, and rank among the finest examples of Mahler singing ever recorded. Christa Ludwig's "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen"–the most beautiful song in the world?–is every bit as fine as Janet Baker's more celebrated version on the same label, and Otto Klemperer's unsentimental conducting style suits the music's "innigkeit" ("inwardness") better than Barbirolli's more affectionate approach.

Valery Gergiev's commitment to late Romantic music has yielded impressive recordings of orchestral works by Anton Bruckner, Richard Strauss, Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, and especially Gustav Mahler, whose symphonies received an impressive audiophile cycle from Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra on the LSO Live label. Gergiev appears to have embarked on yet another Mahler series, this time with the Munich Philharmonic, starting in 2016 with a stirring account of the Symphony No. 2 in C minor, "Resurrection," and followed by this 2017 release of the Symphony No. 4 in G major.

The first releases from the Munich Philharmonic’s own recording label feature sensational performances of works by two composers with whom the orchestra is closely associated: Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 and Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4.
The recording of Mahler’s Second Symphony was made during the opening concerts of Valery Gergiev’s first season as Music Director of the Munich Philharmonic. Since first coming to prominence after winning the Karajan Conducting Competition at the age of 24, Gergiev has established himself as one of the world’s great conductors and communicators on the value and role of music in today’s society.