Your First Mahler record

[Flosshilde]

Mahler 5, when I was a student in the very early 70's, after seeing 'Death in Venice'. Before then I'd dismissed Mahler as long-winded & noisy (being more into Baroque) (I now reserve that opinion for Bruckner ). Can't remember the conductor & orchestra - Haitink & the Concertgebouw? I can remember the design of the cover (but not the picture on it) & can't find it on Amazon.

(My opinion of Mahler wasn't helped by the cover on a record in my local record library - it had a picture of a red garden gnome on it)

[Beef Oven!]

Mahler 5, when I was a student in the very early 70's. I can remember the design of the cover (but not the picture on it) & can't find it on Amazon.

(My opinion of Mahler wasn't helped by the cover on a record in my local record library - it had a picture of a red garden gnome on it)

Well-stocked library

[umslopogaas]

Mahler 2 with Solti and the LSO. It had pride of place in the window of the record shop in Cranleigh in 1966. Two full price Decca LPs, I've no idea where I found the money, but I did and proudly carried it home and proceeded to rapidly wreck it on my parents Dansette, which was totally unable to cope with sound like that. I later bought a replacement, which I still have, its wonderful stuff.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

(My opinion of Mahler wasn't helped by the cover on a record in my local record library - it had a picture of a red garden gnome on it)

This one, Flossie?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/77215-Mahler-Symphony-NYP-Bernstein/dp/B0052R4N1I/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1402997071&sr=1-1&keywords=mahler+6%2C+bernstein%2C+vinyl

... not really a garden gnome, but a headless Mephistopheles. Pity you didn't borrow the set - it's one of the very best ever recordings.

My own first Mahler was (as with many others' who have contributed) the First Symphony,: Kubelik and the Bavarians on DG. A record shop specialising in Heavy Metal opened in Blackburn in 1976, and they had a small Classical section which included this (then full-priced) LP, but with a budget price sticker (£1.25). It's still my favourite recording of the work.

[Sir Velo]

For me it would have been Rattle's first Mahler 2 with the CBSO, Baker and Auger.

However, the first performance I heard was Haitink's farewell from the Concertgebouw in 87 or 88 with the 9th symphony. IIRC, an image of Mahler was beamed up above the podium as the final strains of the Adagio faded out. A clearly emotional BH then mopped his brow and in typically businesslike fashion marched off, came back on, bowed, and marched off again to the undying applause of his players and audience alike. A great occasion and all on BBC 2.

[frankwm]

CBS Classics 61116: Mahler Symphony 1 / Columbia SO - Bruno Walter.

Obtained (mail order) from Francis Cave (an ex-greengrocer!) in Richmond @ 27/- (29/11 rrp) in April 1970 - and possibly my oldest bought/retained LP.
Sounds better than the 'Great Performances' LP reissue from a decade later.

[kuligin]

Mahler 1 Kubelik on Decca Eclipse LP bought on a school trip to Stratford on Avon. English teacher commented "Odd music, like Beethoven but then he goes of the rails". One never disagreed with teachers so just nodded.

[richardfinegold]

Symphony 1 - LSO/James Levine (1975)
RCA offered it at half-price for a limited period. Couldn't afford the Solti (in the school music dept.), but this recording seemed to me just as good at the time.

I found that on lp in a garage sale a few months back. It's very good.

[richardfinegold]

One of my first mahler lps was a Bernstein reissue that paired his NYP recordings of 6 and 7 on 3 lps. I remember simply hating the sound of the lp, which revealed as terrible even on the limited equipment my parents owned. When Carnegie Hall remastered these recordings a few years ago they were revelatory. It turns out that the lp mix was done with the assumption that the average listener would by Americans listening on AM Radio in their cars and the compression was applied by the engineers to make Mahler more palatable through that type of playback, with diasasterous results on any home conventional stereo equipment.
Whenever I read a vinyphilliac extolling the virtues of lp, claiming that any lp prima facie betats a CD remix of the same recording, i point to this as Exhibit A for the rebuttal.

[johnb]

The two LP set of Mahler Symphony No 2 with Bruno Walter conducting the NYPO.

When I bought these LPs, in my mid teens, it was my very first experience of Mahler. (I do love the photo of Bruno Walter on the cover of the LPs - a wonderful face, so full of humanity.)

[gradus]

Vox label, Klemperer conducting the Resurrection symphony. I didn't much like it but my very musical friend who owned the record was transfixed.
Somewhat later I went to the event that Decca organised at the Wigmore Hall to launch the Solti /LSO recording of the same work and was mightily impressed by the recording, one of the first I think to be Dolby processed, reducing tape hiss very effectively.
The CBS Walter Mahler 9 was my first Mahler purchase and is still my favourite performance.

[BBMmk2]

I think Karajan's Mahler 6

[CallMePaul]

Unsure whether it was Kubelik/ VPO on Decca Eclipse (which I no longer have, although I do have his later DG version with the BRSO) or Horenstein/ LPO on Classics for Pleasure (which I still have and continues to hold its own near the top of the list). In the early 1970s my equipment was fairly basic but if I had had state of the art equipment I feel sure I would not have tolerated Decca's "electronically reprocessed stereo" that they used on a lot of the Eclipse reissues.

[richardfinegold]

I think Karajan's Mahler 6

I bought that lp set to celebrate being accepted to Medical School. It's still my favorite 6th. The strings in the Andante!

[Madame Suggia]

Bernstein's Mahler 3
I bought this lp second hand from Beryl at The Collector's room in Suttons, Salisbury.
I say lp because chatty Beryl forgot to tell me that the recording was on 2 lp's!

I bought the second half.