MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO. 3. Gwendolyn Killebrew, contralto;...

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO. 3. Gwendolyn Killebrew, contralto; boys choir of the Collegium Josephinum Bonn; women’s choir of Bavarian and West German Radio; Cologne Radio Orchestra conducted by Gary Bertini. EMI-Deutsche Harmonia Mundi CDCB 47568 8 (two compact discs). Even with the proliferation of compact-disc recordings of the Third Symphony, Bertini’s performance maintains a place of distinction. The expert Cologne orchestra won’t win prizes for lushness, but this scrupulously integrated ensemble serves handsomely as an instrument for the Israel-born conductor’s lean, uneccentric way with this most pantheistic of Mahler’s mature works. Bertini sustains the ominous tread of the extended first movement and in the inner sections never falls prey to self-indulgence by pulling the tempos this way and that. Killebrew renders the Nietzsche text with notable plushness; sonics are clean and ungimmicky.