I don’t think it’s been recorded for CD or download. I remember hearing it in a Prom concert around 20 years ago and enjoying it at the time. I’m somewhat surprised there’s no recording, as a majority of his symphonies are available as CDs, but Max’s music seems to be less often performed these days.
Roger
Ashkenazy’s focus on Bach at the end of his career has given us some outstanding recordings. His partitas are contrasty, kept in strict rhythm, with ornamentations kept to a minimum, and utilise the full resources of a concert grand. The recording is excellent, too.
Between Hewitt, Ashkenazy and Levit, I haven’t been able to pick a favorite…
Cheers
EJ
Try Perahia and Schiff as well.
Actually this afternoon, I listened to the first Partita played on the harp. It was really lovely.
That’s disappointing but thanks - needn’t continue with a doomed search!
I don’t usually play my budget cd’s that I first bought in the 80’s for my Philips cd player and Pioneer amp. Out of curiosity I put one on - a Pickwick cd of Handel’s Water Music that I must have bought in Woolworth’s or WH Smith.
Well I sat back and thought this sounds excellent to my great surprise. I looked at the recording details and the conductor was Richard Hickox and the sound engineer was Tony Faulkner. With a great conductor and a brilliant sound engineer the mystery had been solved!
Tony Faulkner used to go by the pseudonym ‘Mr Bear’ - apparently because he was fond of wearing a huge fur coat, which gave him an ursine appearance!
Thanks for this info Graham. I’ve often seen Mr Bear credited and had no idea who it was!
I’m pretty sure “Mr Bear” was Mike Clements of Floating Earth. There’s a big discography on Discogs.
Roger
Highly recommended.
Cheers
EJ
From a quick listen to a few sections of this on Presto classical’s streaming service, I’m going to have to listen properly tomorrow, because it sounds lovely. Thank you for the heads up!
I do apologise, Peak Man, you’re absolutely right - Mike Clements was ‘Mr Bear’ - my apologies for writing bllx.
I hope that the detail about the coat was correct, hence the name!
Love Staier. 
You win!
I’ve a clash with Beethoven every now and then. We’re no friends. I’m permanently on the run for Mahler and Wagner but they catch me in my weakness on moments when I did not expect it.
This performance is not entirely flawless but catched me because so many things were right. It is the music. Great performance. If there’s better, please enlighten me and suggest better Mahler 2 performances!
Very lucky find in a Charity Shop. I paid £16.99 for this early pressing and it’s in remarkably good condition. The listening experience is just extraordinarily involving, solid, stable imaging with a colourful, rich, huge soundscape. A truly convincing listening experience.
It may be a first pressing or very close to it and I don’t think I’ve owned any in this kind of condition. Either way it’s a great example of the benefits of an early pressing.
A real wow.
There’s a fascinating Barbirolli recording of Mahler’s Ninth with the Berlin Philharmonic. Barbirolli was one of the first to reintroduce that great orchestra to Mahler’s music after it had been ‘verboten’ under Hitler’s goons.
(The Fifth with the New Philharmonia is - or it was until recently - still possible to buy as a new 2LP set from Warner Classics. It’s a great performance, and a good recording, made in Watford Town Hall in July 1969, and Janet Baker’s account of the Rückert Lieder is one of her best performances on record. Baker and Barbirolli got on well together, and you may want to investigate their recording of Elgar’s ‘Sea Pictures’, coupled to Jacqueline du Pré’s famous recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto.)
