Till now I had thought of St Louis only as the birthplace of T. S. Eliot, but this notably well prepared reading and recording of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony is a still more positive recommendation of the place's merit. The performance under Leonard Slatkin, son of the distinguished Felix Slatkin, is both responsible and well executed. Slatkin is careful of Mahler's written tempo markings, and he achieves a high degree of executive coherence. Perhaps, at times, the reading is a little too measured, the care for the shaping of individual paragraphs undermining the building of larger rhythms and an even more compelling dramatic whole. But the performance is, as I say, a notable one, with distinguished soloists and a reliable chorus. The recording itself is exceptionally powerful though a little lacking in transparency of detail.
The problem is the competition. Put on the Solti (Decca) and there is added weight and articulacy in the orchestral playing, greater forward impulse in the conducting, and CD sound of quite outstanding transparency, presence and depth.
The new CD pressings of the Tennstedt from HMV are impressive, giving the sound much greater presence than on LP. As I said in May 1982, the reading is controversial, the first movement played very much as a funeral rite: a slowmoving cortege drawn by grimly caparisoned steeds, nervously pulling and tossing, a procession, it must be said, which moves somewhat erratically at a number of different speeds. On reflection, it is a reading of emotional and dramatic extremes to be experienced every once in a while; not a reading to live with. By contrast, and despite a drawn-out second movement, Solti's version, a judicious blend of musical sense and sonic grandeur, is the version which collectors of CD should most urgently investigate.'