Mahler: Symphony No.6

With "so many fine recordings" of Mahler's Sixth Symphony already available, "any newcomer needs a compelling logic to justify itself", said Andrew Clark in the Financial Times. Fortunately, the American conductor David Zinman – "an elder statesman with a mature grasp of the Mahler canon" – provides a "superb" new version. He avoids "the sort of extremes that can make the Sixth seem overly relentless and grotesque, though there is no lack of charm or character".

Zinman is "scrupulous in his attention to detail", said Hugh Canning in the Sunday Times. "The ordering of the central movements has an inevitable musical logic, which is entirely convincing. But this is far from a cool, objective reading." In particular, "the surging, striving strings dig deep into the yearning melody of the Finale's opening bars", and the "hammer-blows of Fate register as harrowingly as in more feverish accounts of this great symphony". (Verdict: three stars out of five) ·