While cooking dinner the other evening, I put a Leonard Bernstein conducted performance of Mahler’s First Symphony onto the turntable.

I have always resisted listening to Bernstein’s interpretations of Ludwig von Beethoven. Even though Bernstein is famed for his performances of Beethoven’s symphonies, he is such an idiosyncratic presence in the works he conducts, but I don’t necessarily want that in my Beethoven.

But Mahler on the other hand is already such an idiosyncratic composer that Bernstein (who was a great promoter of the Austrian’s work) seems perfect for him.

Mahler is a kitchen sink kind of guy. He’s not a subtle composer. Everything is on the surface, but that surface changes so quickly and a single symphony will take in so many moods. Gustav Mahler is the composer of mood swings – the entire human experience in a single work. Take the First – you have country dances, bombastic bravado, and even a riff on the children’s song, Frère Jacques. Bernstein sounds just right.