Of the several Mahler disciples whose recordings provide us with a line back to Mahler himself, none is more important than Bruno Walter. He was 18 when Mahler engaged him as an assistant at the Hamburg Opera in 1894. The following year, he attended the première of the Second Symphony in Berlin and was himself destined to conduct the posthumous premières of the Ninth Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde, both of which he recorded for 78s and LP. He also made influential post-war studio recordings of the First, Second, Fourth and Fifth symphonies.

So what is special about this latest anthology, given the fact that the readings are already ‘known’ quantities? Rather a lot, is the short answer. Had copyright considerations allowed the publication of these live Vienna radio recordings of Das Lied von der Erde and the Fourth Symphony at the time they were made, they would have become overnight library recommendations.

Walter’s 1946 New York account of the Fourth Symphony is very fine. Yet the string playing alone puts this 1955 Vienna Philharmonic performance into a different league. In the slow movement in particular, it is more tender, more inward, more purely beautiful and – since this is still recognisably the ‘old’ Vienna Philharmonic Walter remembered from his Mahler-inspired youth – more authentic. Significantly, the occasion itself was special, an unrepeatable, memory-laden concert which took place in the Musikverein the morning after the post-war re-opening of the Vienna Opera.

As usual, the ‘heavenly’ finale brings us down to earth with a bump when the human voice enters and Mahler humours us with his child’s view of the afterlife; but Hilde Güden is an agreeable soloist and the end is properly magical. The mono recording – cleared by Walter himself for release by Philips, a deal vetoed by CBS – is first-rate.

The 1948 Mahler Second has been on CD before, more a yellowing newspaper clipping for one’s scrapbook than a volume for one’s library, though Andante’s technical and editorial presentation is vastly superior to that of any of its predecessors. This was Walter’s post-war return to Vienna and the choice of the Resurrection Symphony, emblematic in all manner of ways, was clearly not arbitrary. The occasion also affected the reading. The lack of a consistent forward pulse in the ‘Funeral Rites’ movement is, I suspect, deliberate. The second and third movements are all wistfulness and charm though something like the cry of disgust at fig 49 (8'12") of the St Antony Scherzo is plain enough. Rosette Anday gives a graphic account of the ‘Urlicht’, after which the end is vivid and uplifting, despite the restricted nature of the recording.

The live 1952 account of Das Lied von der Erde – in effect, the concert version of the celebrated Decca recording with Patzak and Ferrier which was being made at the same time – is also new to the catalogue. As a reading, it is identical with that on the studio recording. What is different can best be described as a certain airiness and ease due to the natural rhythms of the live performance and to the altogether more natural balance of the radio sound, something that benefits Patzak, Ferrier and the orchestra whose playing is superbly concentrated and sure-footed (a couple of horn stumbles in the ‘Abschied’ are neither here nor there).

Ferrier is phenomenal. To my ears, she benefits more than anyone from the more natural balance of the radio recording. Too closely miked she could indeed seem to be what Edward Sackville-West famously called ‘this goitrous singer with the contralto hoot’. There is none of that here. Already in thrall to the condition which would end her life, she sings with line and beauty, great intensity and huge courage.

The voice never did convey a sudden shiver on ‘ein kalter Wind’ in ‘Der Einsame im Herbst’ but what she does with ‘gold’nen Blätter’ and the fire-and-ice intensity of the line about the drying of bitter tears more than compensates. In the ‘Abschied’ her singing is fragile and vulnerable in human terms yet thrillingly secure musically. Her rendering of the recitative-like passage in which the friend arrives to take his last farewell removes Mahler’s writing into the realm of Passion-music. In the closing pages, her singing is a miracle of quiet transfigured beauty, perfectly paced by Walter and supremely well accompanied by the orchestra.

Ferrier died 50 years ago this year. So here is another memory in a set already burdened by memory, and transformed by it.