We are often assured that great conductors of an earlier generation interpreted Mahler from within the Austrian tradition, encoding a sense of nostalgia, decay and incipient tragedy as distinct from the in-your-face calamities and neuroses proposed by Leonard Bernstein. Well, this is one Bernstein recording that should convince all but the most determined sceptics. It deserves a place in anyone's collection now that it has been transferred to a single disc at mid-price.
The white-hot communicative power is most obvious in the finale which has never sounded more convincing than it does here; the only mildly questionable aspect of the reading is the second Nachtmusik, too languid for some. The transfer is satisfactory, albeit dimmer than one might have hoped. It sounds historic, but historic in more ways than one.