What is a good intro to "Mahler"?

not to my knowledge. look on ebay.

got any tough requests :-D normally i would recommend starting with symphony #1 and progressing thru #9. however since you want "life" and "fire" in great sound and performance, i would suggest starting w/#2 the Resurection Symphony, its got it all for a newbie to mahler. I have tennstadt on EMI lp. for cd i would recommend mehta on london. if you can find bernstein on LP give it a listen.

ethannnn, I realize that your into LP's big time - i don't know what your CD source stuff is - i assume its up to speed, therefor - Unfortunatly, Mahler didn't get recorded a lot before Walter, Bernstein and Abravennel in the 60's. Good vintage Mahler LP's are very hard to find - There are many excellent CD's of Mahler performances that are arguably much better than what you will find on the lp's that are generally available on the used market. If you're into excellent performances of mahler, ask - if you just want lp's currently available, i can't help.

FWIW, i have an excellent (by any standard) LP and CDP set up. As time goes on i find myself listening more to music in my CD collection than the LP's. Everytime i put on an LP i have to do that audiophile ritual of cleaning etc the result is that i then try to justify what i'm doing by critiqueing the "sound" which takes my attention away from the performance itself. with CD's i just select what i want to hear and put it on, sit back and enjoy. I'll admit it didn't happen over night but i'm glad it did. Now the only LP's i listen to are the ones i select for the performance itself. The trick is in finding a CDP that does it for you, sonically speaking. One of the driving forces for me it doing the is the lack of software available for me on LP's, the Mahler situation is just a small example. Hope you find some middle ground.