If there's any doubt at all that the Mahler renaissance is alive and well in middle America, then this recording should dispel any doubts. The Cincinnati Symphony--their brass section in particular-- clearly took this project as a challenge, and it sounds like they must have blown the music right off of their stands! Their playing is tremendous. I haven't heard trumpets and trombones having such a vulgar good time in the first movement since Bernstein's own first recording from the early 1960s. Not only does Lopez-Cobos pace the symphony ideally, he does the best fifth movement you'll ever hear. And Telarc captures it all in miraculously close and clear sound. The offstage trumpet in the third movement, especially, has never been better balanced. A triumph for all concerned. --David Hurwitz