Walter did three commercial recordings of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, of which the second, with the tenor Julius Patzak, the contralto Kathleen Ferrier, and the Vienna Philharmonic, is generally regarded as the best. Ferrier was dying of cancer when this performance was taped in Vienna's Musikvereinsaal, and her singing of the concluding Abschied is harrowing in its contained intensity.

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