Michael Gielen’s Mahler interpretations have attained an almost cult status among collectors. Mahler’s deeply personal 10th Symphony, never completed, but realized for performance by Mahler/Bruckner expert Deryck Cooke, has been the subject of discussion and controversy since Mahler’s death.

Kubelik became acquainted with Mahler's music as a young man, inspired by the work of Bruno Walter, Erich Kleiber and Fritz Busch. He was fascinated from the start by its capacity for passion and sacrifice and its shrewd foreboding, but also as a compatriot by its Bohemian-Moravian roots. Until the 1960's Mahler was still considered an eccentric outsider whose music was grudgingly performed from time to time. It was Kubelik's dedication to radio-broadcasting which instigated the revival of Mahler's work, culminating in Kubelik being the first conductor ever to perform a complete Mahler cycle, which took place in Munich.

Kubelik became acquainted with Mahler's music as a young man, inspired by the work of Bruno Walter, Erich Kleiber and Fritz Busch. He was fascinated from the start by its capacity for passion and sacrifice and its shrewd foreboding, but also as a compatriot by its Bohemian-Moravian roots. Until the 1960's Mahler was still considered an eccentric outsider whose music was grudgingly performed from time to time. It was Kubelik's dedication to radio-broadcasting which instigated the revival of Mahler's work, culminating in Kubelik being the first conductor ever to perform a complete Mahler cycle, which took place in Munich.

There's a freshness and sense of freedom in this performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony with Markus Stenz and Gürzenich-Orchester Köln that's initially quite appealing. The Cologne orchestra seems not so much to be playing the piece as improvising it, with the result that Maher's counterpoint has rarely sounded so lyrical. Combined with the musicians' manifest virtuosity and their highly characterful playing, this performance can hold its own with the best ever recorded, in terms of orchestral execution. Conductor Stenz likewise seems not so much to have memorized the work as to have internalized it, and his interpretation is highly individual in many ways. He allows the orchestra plenty of room for phrasing, but shapes the ensemble through his control of balance and tempo, and his grasp of the huge work's vast structure is sure and firm. Yet in this highly emotional work, one wishes for more: more intensity in the opening Funeral March, more vivacity in the central Scherzo, more expressivity in the Adagietto, and especially, more of a sense of release in the Rondo-Finale, but this performance delivers a bit less than just enough. While it's possible to enjoy the performance, it is not especially engaging on an emotional level. Oehms' super audio sound is transparent and enveloping, but oddly, not quite there.

Die drei Pintos (The Three Pintos) is a comic opera of which Carl Maria von Weber began composing the music, working on a libretto by Theodor Hell. The work was completed about 65 years after Weber's death by Gustav Mahler.