Although there is no lack of drama, this reading is refreshingly unmannered and free from overstatement.

The Third was among the first and most successful of Bernstein's Mahler recordings. Leonard Bernstein's reading is refreshingly unmannered and free from overstatement. There is no lack of drama or tension in the long first movement: the inner movements are done with great charm and the second in particular is quite winning. Matha Lipton is occasionally a shade under the note in the fourth movement, "0 Mensch, 0 Mensch!" but her voice has excellent quality and she sings with great feeling. The singing of the boys' choir in the fifth movement is fresh and vigorous and only an occasional note of over-sweetness, not wholly unavoidable in this music, is found in the finale. Apart from one or two minor points of balance that are of small account, the recording is well engineered. The acoustic is warm and open, detail emerges clearly and the perspective is for the most part truthful. The surfaces are smooth. Strongly recommended.

-- Gramophone [6/1974, reviewing an LP reissue of the Mahler 3]