New review: Václav Neumann’s Mahler 9th in Leipzig from 1967

New review ! (of an old recording): Václav Neumann’s Mahler 9th with the Gewandhaus Leipzig Orchestra, recorded in 1967 by the East-German label Eterna (and never circulated in the West back then), CD reissued by Berlin Classics and Brilliant Classics. That nearly completes my survey of the studio versions from the 1960s: only Haitink Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam 1969 to go (plus a few lives). With excellent sonics and a fantastically well-disciplined orchestra, Neumann offers fine things in the last three movements, but his recording fails on an uninflected, unfelt first movement, whose only interpretive point of view seems to be to march on and not linger.

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