Complete Symphonies (Bernstein) [Box set]

Highlights include:
The pantheistic Third, with its riveting opening brass conveying the Shiva-like dance of creation itself;
A bracing hell-for-leather performance of the tragic Sixth, with a prophetic militaristic feeling to the opening march (the world marching gleefully to war as the Austro-Hungarian Empire imploded) and a wonderfully lyrical and sexy second subject;
The psychedelic Seventh, Mahler’s symphonie fantastique, the aural equivalent of an acid trip – nobody does this work better than Lenny;
A sublimely valedictory and dramatic Ninth, the outer movements gloriously shaped, the sarcasm and wit of the inner movements waspishly conveyed (the Landler comes across like a Strauss waltz on steroids, whilst the Rondo Burlesque, dedicated ‘to my brothers in Apollo’ becomes an aural contract taken out on Mahler’s critics that literally entropises in self-disgust during the apocalyptic final bars), and the moving final bars are as close to the act of dying as music and the sympathetic imagination of the listener permit.

The recordings have been spruced up digitally and are crisp and clear; their closeness and dryness enhances the performances and gives a period feel – which is not to say you need to make too many allowances for them. This is an impressive corpus of work and superior to the latter digital recordings Bernstein gave us on DGG (IMHO) – these are generally too slow and laboured to be convincing, though of course there are many fine things, but you generally feel that you are listening to fragments of greatness as oppose to an integrated wholeness. The latter recordings are in many ways technically inferior to these more natural sounding recordings from the Sixties too.

Bernstein has a real feeling for the intensity and neuroses inherent within this music, and his natural chutzpah also informs the darkly sarcastic scherzos and landler. He was one of music’s greatest communicators.

Other cycles also have their claims – Solti histrionic and impressively recorded if you wish to air your top of the range hi-fi and provoke the animosity of your non-music loving neighbours; Haitink safe and sane but ultimately yawn-inducing; Abbado satisfactory but ultimately lacking the last degree of inspiration or commitment; Kubelik attractively fresh, slightly mannered and sympathetic, but doesn’t quite tell the whole story (he shies from the all-important, edgier stuff); and few of the other contenders are especially convincing, though the emerging Rattle cycle has its claims if you can get through all the hype.

You could of course create your own cycle using the best of breed theory – this might consist of (say) Kubelik in 1; Klemperer in 2 and Das Lied von der Erde; Horenstein in 3; Szell in 4; Bernstein with the VPO in 5 (yep, I’m contradicting myself above but consistency is for dullards); Karajan or Boulez in 6; Boulez or Sixties Bernstein in 7; Solti or Tennstedt in 8; Karajan or Bruno Walter in 9 (also Simon Rattle’s VPO live performance, similar in terms of style to Walter, and the quirky Neumann recording, which turns the Ninth into a horror-show black comedy); Rattle or Chailly in the Cooke completed 10th (don’t just be fobbed off with just the Adagio, which is included in this Bernstein set anyway) for example – but for the best overall cycle, look no further.