Here is a very special issue for admirers of a brand of music-making it has become fashionable to deprecate as heartless, insincere or even 'inauthentic'. Karajan came late to Mahler and yet, until the release of his (rather more fiercely recorded) 1982 concert relay of the Ninth (listed above), he seemed content to regard this studio performance as perhaps his finest achievement on disc (both incidentally won Gramophone Awards). It may well be the case that Mahler's development of rhythm and line is tougher and should be more sharply contoured than the conductor was prepared to admit, but, at the very least, his relatively detached attitude and generally broad pacing enable his players to get round the notes as never before. True, Karajan is inclined to smooth away eruptive details: in the finale, those repeated high C flats in the strings before the reprise are intensely articulated but not necessarily in the manner Mahler requests. The waltz element of the second movement is oddly graceless and Teutonic, while the Rondo-Burleske is not without moments of questionable nuancing. There is a tensile strength as well as an opulence about the string sound even if it is sometimes allowed to dominate textures at the expense of brass and timpani. And yet all this is mere nit-picking when so considerable a reading has not previously appeared on CD.
The set's attractions are greatly enhanced here by the unexpected pairing with Christa Ludwig's carefully considered Mahler performances of the mid-1970s. (There is scarcely a pause before Kindertotenlieder is under way.) The voice may not be as fresh as it was when she recorded most of these songs with the Philharmonia (EMI, 11/59—nla), but there are few readings of comparable nobility. Baker and Fassbaender are perhaps more responsive to the mood of each song, the one intimate, almost self-communing, the other more bitingly dramatic. Nevertheless, Ludwig articulates the text with unrivalled clarity and ''In diesem Wetter'' at least is positively operatic. How much of the grand scale should be attributed to Karajan? It is difficult to say, the voice is sometimes strained by the tempos. Despite the absence of texts, this oddly low-profile collection is not to be missed.'