The new releases, whether single or double albums, are invariably delivered in beautiful gatefold sleeves, just like current DGG recordings. They share the same superb matt finish and reproduce the original cover art. However, although these sleeves represent a qualitative step up, in the case of the Mahler 5, those familiar with the original will notice that the re-issue loses the box, along with the rather excellent Kindertotenlieder and its libretto. DGG note that the Lieder were not recorded in four-track which would doubtless have complicated production, but dispensing with them also means that the first two movements can be given a side each, dispensing with the 28-minute (!) first side of the original pressing – and that for two of the more energetic movements. It is a sensible engineering decision but one I wish they’d taken further still. The original Side 3 (side 4 in the re-issue) also runs to over 27 minutes: why not go the whole hog and cut it over five sides (or six sides and include the Lieder)?
As noted above, the Kleiber disc offers a rather different value proposition. The cost of a really nice original pressing could easily exceed the cost of the re-issue, assuming you can find one (and you’ve got the Teldec curve to play it). I for one never bothered to hunt down an early pressing of the Kleiber 7 simply because it was so readily available on SACD, both from DGG and the superb live version from Orfeo. My fairly mundane cop is hardly worthy competition for the 180g re-issue, so I’m handing responsibility for that assessment to Dennis Davis who will report separately. I’ll concentrate on the Schubert and Mahler discs, records where I do have early pressings of both (and the ability to play them with the correct curv).
So much for the history – what about the results?
My original 1973 pressing of the Karajan/BPO Mahler 5 is the floppiest of fuel-crisis floppy discs, each record weighing a mere 108g. But in assessing these discs, it is necessary to consider playing them with both the RIAA curve (as most people will have heard them) and with the Teldec curve –assuming you have the facility. This is one record that really rams home the benefit of variable record replay EQ. Played with the RIAA curve the results are splashy, lightweight, stolid and congealed, with a confused and congested soundstage that blurs instrumental position and energy, collapsing space and dynamic contrasts. It’s not hard to figure out why second-hand examples are so cheap.
But, with the switch to the Teldec curve, the musical and sonic benefits are almost brutally apparent from the opening bars. The glare is banished, the soundstage sorts itself out and the bass gains weight and purpose. Even more significantly, the sense of tempo and the dramatic tension in the performance emerge, the BPO’s superb ensemble playing and discipline together with Karajan’s purposeful direction combining to illuminate and give shape to this most demanding and complex symphony.
Switching to the re-issue (which is cut RIAA) and adjusting for the significant variation in VTA, the superiority of the new records is immediately apparent, in the added weight and extension, more natural timbre, increased dynamics (startlingly so in the first two movements) and the increased focus, separation and stability in the soundstage. The orchestra is more planted, the acoustic more explicit and the bottom end more tuneful, rich and textured. There’s a lovely moment early in the Second Movement, in the calm after the frenetic opening, that the woodwinds are underpinned by a mere murmur of the timps – yet the texture of the skins is beautifully natural and apparent.
