Michael Tilson Thomas, San Francisco Symphony - Mahler: Symphony No. 6 (2006) [SACD]

I actually attended the phenonmenal performance of this work plus or minus a day or two from the actual live recording. It was just after 9/11 so there was a special significance to this performance.
Between movements MTT was alerted that a San Francisco & worldwide music favorite, violinist Isaac Stern, had just passed away – so the remainder of the performance I attended was dedicated to his memory.
I used to think SACD was a bunch of hooey until I heard this disc (given to me as a gift). After I heard it on an SACD player I went out and got an SACD home theatre system. The total combination of a top-notch world-class performance and a great recording job plus the multichannel recording simply makes this a reference recording.
I’m a Mahler nut and have various great recordings (CDs) of him. All are excellent performance-wise (I do have my favorites, and love Lenny’s interpretations, though my Maazel Mahler #5 is up there too). Unfortunately many of these CDs, esp when released in early 80s, suffer from being radically “bright”. (I do hope some of these performances – even those that were “AAD” – are redigitized from masters.)
And given the quality of this, I went out and bought the SFS recording of Mahler’s #1. (Another performance I physically attended, perhaps even on the same day of the recording.) Equally fine, equally grand, equally wonderful recording & ‘presence’.
[And BTW – the regular stereo CD layers on these two sound pretty damned good in my truck CD as well.]
Can’t wait for SFS to release Mahler’s #2 and #5 in same format. MTT knows Mahler!