No one did more to promote the works of Gustav Mahler than the late Leonard Bernstein. Alas, for all his proselytizing, he was, frankly, not a particularly great conductor of Mahler, and one generally gets more of Bernstein and less of Mahler in the performances. Indeed, his first recording of the Fifth Symphony with the NY Philharmonic ranks as one of the worst recordings of anything, by anybody, ever committed to vinyl.

Even Bernstein, however, occasionally learned to take the backseat when appropriate (such as -- imagine that! -- when conducting Mahler), and his recording with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and James King of Das Lied von der Erde still ranks as one of my favorites of this work.