Bride of the Wind (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack).(Sound Recording Review)

Various Artists (Deutsche Grammophon 289 469 584-2)

Long-time (and probably most short-time, come to think of it) readers already know that the music of Gustav Mahler is often discussed in these pages, not only in this and John Puccio's review columns, but also in Double Double, where Tom Lyle and I about as often as not are comparing recordings of our favorite composer. Long-time readers may also have deduced by now that I am not much of a movie buff, nor do I often review movie soundtracks. Unfortunately for me, my prejudice against soundtracks nearly caused me to completely overlook a wonderful recording, one that I just happened to come across over Christmas vacation when I spent a couple of days trying to bring some semblance of order to my CD collection, which had just about taken over my entire listening room.

I was just about ready to relegate Bride of the Wind to a stack that would probably never get played when somehow my eyes somehow noticed the word "Mahler' in the smaller print along the bottom of the front cover of the CD. I did a double take, then read the entire phrase ...