Sir Colin Davis was a “maestro without airs and graces” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and an interpretor of Mozart and Berlioz who enjoyed worldwide renown. This recording of Gustav Mahler's “Das Lied von der Erde” features Davis in fine form, brilliantly conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, where he was principal conductor from 1983 to 1993. This symphonic song cycle, which Leonard Bernstein described as Mahler's “greatest symphony”, was never performed in Mahler's lifetime. Though completed in 1908, it was first premièred in 1911 in Munich. Doris Soffel is not only a celebrated opera singer: she has earned an international reputation as one of the finest interpreters of Mahler's works. The American tenor Kenneth Riegel has for decades been a regular performer on the world's opera stages, from New York and Paris to Vienna and Salzburg. The soloists deliver an impressive display of their mastery of lieder in this recording. After it was founded in 1949, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra soon began to build a highly respected international reputation. Shaped by a succession of great principal conductors including Rafael Kubelík, Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons and Sir Colin Davis, the orchestra possesses an unusually broad-ranging repertoire and an impressive tonal range.