Mahler: Symphony 2 / Schmidt: Symphony 4
Throughout his career, Mehta has made a specialty of Mahler'sResurrectionSymphony, and he gives a blazing account of it in his 1975 recording with the Vienna Philharmonic. The ascent from funereal terror in the first movement to the summit of bliss in the finale is confidently guided, the impact of Mahler's visionary conception fully realized. London/Decca's remastered analog recording offers sweeping, wide-range sonics to match the musical vistas. The coupling is perhaps the finest account of Franz Schmidt's Fourth Symphony ever recorded, and by itself worth the price of this set.--Ted Libbey