Here we have not only the (now "Royal") Concertgebouw ensemble in all of its idiomatic glory, magnificently recorded, but also Chailly at his most interpretively perceptive–and the result is absolutely stunning… As a bonus, Mahler's Bach Suite also receives its finest performance on disc. David Hurwitz
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Riccardo Chailly's Mahler cycle with a sonically spectacular performance of the Third. It also brings nearer the end of his tenure in Amsterdam with the great Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra whose tradition he has maintained while overlaying it with a fine dedication to new music. This is a deeply impressive interpretation with an intriguing coupling. Gramophone
Thanks to the surprising proliferation of Mahler’s music on DVD, there are multiple performances of this particular symphony with which to compare this new one (not least among them Bernstein’s and Abbado’s); there is also Boulez’s own previous performance with the Vienna Philharmonic, made a couple of months after this concert, available on one generous DG CD, to consider by way of comparison.
Here we have not only the (now "Royal") Concertgebouw ensemble in all of its idiomatic glory, magnificently recorded, but also Chailly at his most interpretively perceptive–and the result is absolutely stunning… As a bonus, Mahler's Bach Suite also receives its finest performance on disc. - David Hurwitz; Classicstoday.com
Colin Davis’s 1969 recording remains a landmark event, the first time this grand opera of Meyerbeerian length, spectacular éclat and Wagnerian artistic ambition had found its way complete onto LP. It effectively changed views about Berlioz the opera composer and orchestral genius and has for many remained the yardstick by which all later performances have been judged. Although studio recorded, it was based on the Covent Garden casting of the day – Jon Vickers’s heroic Aeneas and Josephine Veasey’s voluptuous Dido – with a couple of Frenchmen to boost the ranks of lesser Trojans and Carthaginians…