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What has happed did really happen?

Today I left a grocery store today, sat in a car, tuned to WCRB and discovered that they were playing the opining of the Mahler 3rd. I got instantly hypnotized how beautiful it was. It was slow enough and it was incredibly smart. It was expressive, it was meaningful, it was elegant and it was like never before. It had some second underlying super-meaning, so seldom happening with performance of Mahler 3rd.  It had almost that Stanislavsky super-task feeling and I was immediately taken with the play.

I quickly dove home which was just a mile away. The playback system was up and running and I spent next hour truly enjoying the performance. They never collapsed neither orchestra nor the conductor. The discipline of musicians was phenomenal but it was not constrained but superbly natural. It was like orchestra was breathing with Sound.  All six movements flew like a dream and it was absolutely gorgeous.  It was the best Mahler 3rd I heard and I eagerly was waiting the host to announce who it was.  It turned out that it was Semyon Bychkov leading the WDR Symphony Orchestra from 2002 with Marjana Lipovšek signing along with Köln Cathedral Choir.  It turned out that the performance is available on CD: Avie AV0019, not in US but this is kind of expected.

The event took place during the WCRB program by James David Jacobs, I have no idea how he dug it out! Thanks James!

All my searches of the CD were not successful but I was able to find it directly at the recording studio site:

http://www.avie-records.com/album_detail.php?id=91

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