When he was good, he was very, very good and despite being in recovery from a throat cancer operation Tennstedt inspired his forces - somewhat smaller than normal but certainly not lacking in power or gravitas - to produce one of the finest recordings of this great but unwieldy and uneven work.

I have read criticisms elsewhere of some supposed inadequacy in the soloists and a slackening of tension in Part 2. I certainly hear nothing of the kind: the singers are wonderful, especially Edith Wiens as Una Poenitentium, and the climax to the whole piece is breath-takingly majestic. The sound is very fine and the reduction in choir members is all to the good as it allows Tennstedt to achieve greater clarity but without loss of weight. His tempi are finally judged, if occasionally idiosyncratic - but he does everything for good reason and clearly has a broad, over-arching vision of how the music should go, such that he manages to bridge some of the bare patches and potential longueurs when Mahler's inspiration flags somewhat. I found both the London Philharmonic Choir and the Tiffin School Boys to be thrilling, with intonation secure even if the upper reaches of the voices. For me, this stands alongside Bernstein's earlier, inspired Sony recording (also with British forces but in more elderly sound and with slightly less accomplished soloists), and with Solti's famous one-disc set, which provides even more excitement but less grandeur. This is now available on GROC coupled with the 4th Symphony, but if you want just the 8th it can be picked up very cheaply on Amazon Marketplace.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Self doubt captures the apocalyptic tone of Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand, 13 Jul 2009

By	Mr. J. Clark "boboreilly" (Glasgow Scotland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I came to this record cold after reading about Tennstedt's defection to the west at the end of the cold war. I found it, quite simp;ly, stunning. Every performance of Mahler's Eighth could be described thus but this is very special indeed. Brought up on the Solti and (under-rated) Wyn Morris performances on LP I was unprepared for Tennstedt's meticulous preparation and moulding of the orchestra and choirs. I was reminded very much of Menuhin's description of Furtwangler's conducting in which he likened it to the creation of a sculpture comprised entirely of liquid. I gather Tennstedt's performances were generally fraught affairs characterised by the conductor's self doubt that he could do justice to the composer's vision, This of course is as it should be because despite the above hyperbolae, the real star of the show is Mahler and I am greatly indebted to Klaus Tennstedt and the forces that he inspired to reveal Mahler's great vision of mortality. Mahler here prefiguring Thomas' "After the first death, there is no other." Mahler's life had been haunted and informed by his own sense of mortality. The last 3 Symphonies and Das Lied von der Erde are the culmination of his thoughts on 'the one great truth'.

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