How bad could it be? After all, with such notorious stinkers like the boorish
Yoel Levi with the
Atlanta Symphony and aesthetically evil
Simon Rattle and the
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra gracing the catalog, it'd be pretty hard for
Antoni Wit and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Katowice with soprano
Lynda Russell to turn out the worst recording of
Mahler's Symphony No. 4 ever made. But for sheer, unadulterated mediocrity, it'd be hard to top
Wit and the Polish National's Fourth. While one would like to put the shabby ensemble and shaky tempos down to limited rehearsal time, the faded tone of the orchestra is all its own as the lackadaisical conducting is
Wit's own. The charm and enchantment of the work are gone and the anticipation of sublime delight has fled, and all that's left is what sounds like a run-through by a provincial orchestra under a passable conductor with a slightly more than tolerable soprano in dim and dismal sound.