Repertoire: The BEST and WORST Mahler Symphony Cycles

As an adjunct to my videos on the individual Mahler symphonies, here is a talk on the best and worst complete cycles (featuring more than twenty of them). As I have said many times, there is no “perfect“ Mahler symphony cycle. The music is too complex, too expressively comprehensive for any one conductor to encompass fully, but some have come pretty close. Here they are.