Vienna

I'm rediscovering Mahler after 30 years. I had everything on LP, but now must move a CD collection to iPod, or maybe to my Linux laptop in ogg format (arguably better). My choice is Claudio Abbado (Nos. 1, 3, 6, 9) Riccardo Chailly (No. 8), John Barbirolli (No. 5), Simon Rattle (Nos. 2, 10), Leonard Bernstein (No. 7) and Jascha Horenstein (No. 4).
There was something in the ritual of carefully cleaning the LP and lowering the delicately balanced stylus that set the scene for attentive listening, but my student flat could not cope with the enormous dynamic range of a Mahler symphony: constantly adjusting the volume did not make for attentive listening. Now headphones allow that concentration, but deafness and tinnitus are my new companions. No time to waste.
I was in Vienna last weekend to see a colleague, so had a coffee by the opera house. The apocalyptic horseman is on the roof of the Court Opera House. In the nearby bookshop, I bought the Blaukopf's book, "Mahler, his Life, Work & World", based on contemporary quotations from letters and newspaper reviews. I sat in the early morning sun, shut out the tour buses and drifted back 100 years to hear the horse-drawn trams on the Ringstrasse.

I am mindful that I have already had eight more years of life than Mahler was granted.