This is Bernstein's third recording of songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn if you count his rather erratic live piano and voices account recorded in New York in 1968 (CBS—nla). In many ways, it is his best integrated, steadiest, and most mature reading, with tempos now noticeably reined back in ''Reveille'' and in ''Rhinlegendchen'', a song that Lucia Popp sings with idiomatic flair and less mannerism than Schwarzkopf for Szell on EMI. You may not think that sober-suited maturity is necessarily a virtue in these songs of young love and mortality but this is to reckon without the intricacy of the writing and the craftsmanship that has gone into the making of these songs. For the most part, they do need singing of the finest pedigree and performances of exceptional musical discipline.
They also need care in recording. The second Bernstein version on CBS sounds well enough though on CD the voices are more forward than on either of the EMI rivals, uncomfortably so at times. The Tennstedt/EMI has a boldness of image that is well suited to the robustness, the open-handed good humour of Tennstedt's conducting for Weikl, a rollicking Baron Ochs in some of the comic songs, and for the ubiquitous Popp who sings with unaffected accomplishment for Tennstedt as well as for Bernstein on DG. The best balanced sound is undoubtedly that provided by the formidable team of George Szell, Walter Legge and Christopher Parker on the justly celebrated 1968 EMI set. The new Bernstein is recorded live, not, I would have thought, the shrewdest of decisions where this music is concerned. In general it puts the voices as much backward as the older CBS recording placed them to the fore. Sometimes perspectives are not all that clear, with the result that a song like ''Trost im Ungluck'', Mahler in Merry Widow mood, is much less uninhibitedly enjoyable than it is on the Tennstedt set with Weikl and Popp. In the bigger pieces there is less of a problem. Bernstein has always done the ''Der Schildwache Nachtlied'' superbly, and it is one of the highlights of the new recording. Similarly, the ''Lied des Verfolgten im Turm'' shows Bernstein and his latest baritone soloist, Andreas Schmidt at their sturdy best where Fischer-Dieskau's projection is, for once on his recording for Szell, oddly impressionistic.
Yet it must be said that in general Schmidt is dull alongside the clubable Weikl or Fischer-Dieskau, whose sense of heroic pathos in ''Reveille'' is surpassed only by his genius in characterizing the drummer boy, ''Der Tamboursg'-sell'', the naivete Mahler asks for conveyed in complex vocal colourings that have nothing to do with mannerism, everything to do with revealing character and situation. Weikl, characteristically is rather melodramatic here—a man ready at a moment's notice to go over the top in both the civilian and military senses of the phrase—whilst Schmidt and even Berry (Bernstein/CBS) are relatively bland. I also find the Fischer-Dieskau/Schwarzkopf duet version of ''Wo die Schonen Trompeten blasen'' to be especially affecting. Popp copes well single-handed in both her versions, better than Ludwig for Bernstein on CBS but the song takes on an entire new dimension in the duet form that Mahler certainly envisaged for some of the Wunderhorn songs.
Stealing other people's songs is part of the interpreters' game in these pieces. One of Schwarzkopfs recital showpieces was ''Lob des hohen Verstands'', the song with the nightingale, the cuckoo, and the donkey as the cloth-eared music critic. Yet Weikl does it much better (as does Geraint Evans on the 1966 Delyse recording under Wyn Morris, recently reissued on CD by Nimbus— N15084). Sexist though it may seem, I am not sure all the guffawing and hee-hawing suit a lady. Bernstein has modified his tempo in this song, so it sounds less like an encore, but Berry is potentially the more interesting singer. More than once, Popp takes a song that is sung by the baritone on a rival set. Weikl sings St Antony's Sermon song wonderfully well, Fra Melitone entertaining a novice, where Popp, for Bernstein is Hansel entertaining Gretel with a bit of folklore. In general, Popp complements her male rivals. In ''Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht'' she is as charming as Fischer-Dieskau (who treats the melismatic writing like spoof Bach) is witty. Popp is more even-handed than Schwarzkopf, who has her mannerisms; but there is no doubt that Schwarzkopf's insights, when they come, are all-transforming.
In the end, there is little to choose between the conductors because, though they are temperamentally poles apart, they are all skilled and expert Mahlerians. So it comes down to singers and recordings; and as there is a good deal of mixing and matching and no formal over-view to be taken, the only way to make a choice is to take the 12 songs in the four versions, give each a mark out of ten, and work out the result as a neat percentage. On this simple pedagogical method I found that the Szell with Schwarzkopf and Fischer-Dieskau—a set faultless despite its faults—came out clear winner with an 85 per cent rating. Tennstedt was close behind with 81 per cent, and Bernstein/DG with 79 per cent, though he does add ''Urlicht'' as he did on the CBS (76 per cent) set. Nowadays he conducts it rather more swiftly, giving it a more human, less hieratic feel which I am sure is right when the song is part of Des Knaben Wunderhorn rather than the Second Symphony. Count that in for a small bonus and the Bernstein/DG moves into second place. In the end, though, it is difficult to displace the Szell as a library version, unless, that is, you have the grave misfortune of being musically allergic to either of Szell's soloists.'