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"Five Stars ... so sleek and genial ... gleaming sound ..." - BBC Music Magazine "... fresh and exciting ... Thomas' management of tension throughout is exemplary ... the playing of the San Francisco Symphony also is first class ... an interpretation full of good ideas and ear-catching detail ..." - ClassicsToday.com "The playing of the San Francisco Symphony is sharp, alert, colourful and committed. The brass is especially distinguished with attack and depth. The recording does have a wide dynamic range ... among modern recordings this one certainly deserves consideration ..." - MusicWeb International This is the second volume in the highly acclaimed, multi-Grammy-winning live Mahler symphony cycle from the San Francisco Symphony, led by noted Mahlerian Michael Tilson Thomas. Containing a powerful and passionate reading of Mahler's Symphony No. 1, recorded during concerts in September 2001, the album captures the live excitement of a conductor-symphony partnership that the Los Angeles Times has declared "the most exciting Mahler combination anywhere right now." "The First Symphony shows Mahler at his most characteristic and vulnerable, for here he makes an enormous symphony out of the sonic stuff we all know from our lives. He uses bird calls, the sounds of military bands, folk, salon and cabaret music. He evokes the sound of voices singing, whispering, humming and shrieking: all things we recognize as part of the range of human experience. Mahler was like a cinematographer in music, creating enormous soundscapes that include everything we know of life." - Michael Tilson Thomas