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Beethoven: Symphony No 5 / Bernstein, Et Al

Sony Masterworks

$11.98 Aug 01, 2006

This recording also includes a lecture by Leonard Bernstein on the first movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, entitled "How a Great Symphony Was Written". Leonard Bernstein recorded the lecture in four different languages including English. To listen to a desired language, the stereo balance has to be turned to favor one of the audio speakers. On some players a mono button can be pressed to make the selected channel signal balance in both speakers.

As with the Stravinsky CD I reviewed recently, this issue contains music conducted by Leonard Bernstein followed by a talk discussing aspects of that music. This time it’s Beethoven, and the most celebrated of the symphonies, the fifth. In fact, the illustrated talk was recorded some five years before the symphony, at a time when Bernstein was giving full rein to his educational pursuits.

The talk is quite brief, and, a little frustratingly, discusses only the first movement of the symphony. It’s well worth hearing, though, for Bernstein gives a fascinating insight into the composer’s working processes. As a creative artist himself, he understood these processes well, and he drives home how the apparent inevitability of the way one idea follows another in the symphonic argument was in fact the outcome of a detailed and lengthy sifting and rejection of material and treatment. This applies even to details of the orchestration, and it is revealing to hear, for example, the famous opening with the addition, as Beethoven originally intended, of flutes to the strings. It sounds most peculiar, and one has to agree with Bernstein that the final version that we know today has far greater power of utterance.

I suppose that Beethoven is not a composer one immediately associates with Bernstein, as one does Mahler, Stravinsky or Copland for example. But his music meant an enormous amount to the American maestro, and one of his very last public musical acts was, famously, to conduct Beethoven’s 9th in Berlin soon after the destruction of the Wall. This 5th, though it will not be to everyone’s taste, is a performance of enormous character and commitment. For me, the first movement is the least convincing; it has a breadth and a seeming lack of urgency which is almost perverse. It is, as a performance, the diametric opposite to the Harnoncourt/Norrington school; nonetheless, on its own terms, it works, for the surge of energy which occurs in the coda has the sense of a dam bursting, of pent-up energy surging forth. There are some telling details, too, with, for example, the oboe emerging from the texture before its solo cadenza (track 1, around 5:10).

The Andante is beautifully done, at a serenely flowing tempo, and with flexible, expressive playing from wind and strings, despite a surprising split note from 2nd trumpet (track 2 around 3:12). The scherzo, interestingly, is on the quick side, and Bernstein emphasises the light and shade, giving the music a suitably furtive feel. And as you might expect from this most theatrical (in the best sense!) of conductors, the tense transition to the fourth movement is magnificently done, with the great crescendo held back to the very last moment carrying us into the triumphant blaze of the finale’s opening theme. And once more, Bernstein’s sheer commitment and energy keeps the momentum of this movement up to the very end, particularly impressive when – as the disc’s liner notes proudly announce – this is a performance with all the repeats in place. Well, that’s not rare these days, though it is surprising how many conductors still do omit the exposition repeat in the finale. All told, a highly successful performance, typical of the conductor in its expressive power and dynamism, but completely free of his less admirable mannerisms.

- Gwyn Parry-Jones, MusicWeb International

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Beethoven: Symphony No 5 / Bernstein, Et Al
Sony Masterworks Aug 2006
CD
$11.98

Bruckner: Symphony No 5 / Abbado, Lucerne Festival Orchestra [blu-ray]

Accentus Music

Blu-Ray

$41.99 May 29, 2012

Also available on standard DVD

BRUCKNER Symphony No. 5 (Nowak ed.) • Claudio Abbado, cond; Lucerne Fest O • ACCENTUS ACC 10243 (Blu-ray: 80:33) Live: Lucerne 8/19–20/2011

Claudio Abbado formed the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in 2003 after his return to musical life following successful treatment for stomach cancer. His appearances each summer with this group, built upon the core of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra plus first-chair players from many top ensembles, are highly anticipated events. So, when Lucerne videos are released during the year following a festival, it’s like returning to a favorite summer vacation town. What’s the same? What’s changed? As the cameras scan the orchestra, we see that the older female cellist (Natalia Gutman) is missing, but many other familiar faces are back, including violist Wolfram Christ, flutist Jacques Zoon, and the eccentric-appearing principal trumpet (Reinhold Friedrich, who, for some reason, is permitted to wear an extravagant velvet jacket and as a result looks like a cross between Ben Franklin and a circa 1910 patent medicine salesman). Plus, as always, there is a healthy number of young musicians who must be marveling at their good fortune to be participating in such an extraordinary endeavor. Because of the degree of continuity from year to year, a strong sense of artistic purpose and, of course, the man on the podium, the orchestra consistently performs at a level equal to the very best permanent ensembles on earth, even though they are together only relatively briefly each summer.

Bruckner’s Symphony No. 5 is a work that can be condescended to. If a conductor begins with the premise that the Fifth is a piece that—however powerful and popular—is constructed from simplistic elements and lacking refinement, well … you’ll get a performance that’s simplistic and unrefined. Abbado finds layers and layers of nuance and meaning in the symphony. (Benjamin Zander is another conductor who shows the work a similar respect.) Any aura of ritual or of a grinding symphonic machine is banished and something much more organic is in evidence; it’s less a sonic cathedral (to use the standard Bruckner cliché) and more of a Beethovenian or Mahlerian evocation of the natural world. The chorales—strings in the second movement or the “11 apostles” in the Finale—are thankfully shorn of any Hollywood religiosity and just seem to blossom inevitably from musical seeds planted much earlier on. Abbado leads the Scherzo with exceptional lift and lightness, but still allows the obsessive quality to come through without nearly as much hard-headedness—the “country bumpkin” cliché—as is often the case. And then there are the felicities provided by all those world-class instrumentalists. For just one example, listen to the seamless manner with which phrases are passed from horn to oboe to flute at the very end of the second movement.

The sound is glorious in stereo and, especially, with multichannel—richly sonorous, dynamic, detailed, and dimensional. I’ve never witnessed a large audience listen so quietly before; everyone present in the Concert Hall of KKL Luzern for the two performances generating this video last August knew, I’m sure, that they were witnessing something special. They seem afraid to breathe, much less cough or fidget in their seats. As has become the custom, flowers rain down on the performers after the concert’s conclusion. The audience rises to its feet, something that doesn’t happen all that often in Europe (as opposed to the U.S., where every performance, however routine, typically gets a standing ovation). Abbado will be 80 next year and he looks well. Here’s hoping there are many more of these Blu-ray treasures to come.

FANFARE: Andrew Quint

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Bruckner: Symphony No 5 / Abbado, Lucerne Festival Orchestra [blu-ray]
Accentus Music May 2012
Blu-Ray
$41.99

Dvorak: Symphony No. 5; In Nature's Realm; Scherzo Capriccioso

SWR

$10.49 ~~$20.99~~ Save 50% Oct 09, 2015

Written during the summer of 1875, Antonín Dvorák's Symphony No. 5 in F Major, Op. 76 is considered the first work in which Dvorák found his way to a new symphonic idiom. It's noticeable inflections of Bohemian folklore, accompanied by almost Schubertian phrases, infuse the symphony with light and give it buoyancy. Two of Dvorák's many one-movement orchestral pieces, In Nature´s Realm Op. 91 and the Scherzo capriccioso Op. 66, serve as considerable, substantial encores. Karel Mark Chichon (OBE) is Chief Conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbru¨cken Kaiserslautern.

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Dvorak: Symphony No. 5; In Nature's Realm; Scherzo Capriccioso
SWR Oct 2015
CD
~~$20.99~~ $10.49

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 5; Beethoven / Leinsdorf

ICA Classics

DVD

$20.99 ~~$26.99~~ Save 20% Feb 28, 2012

Leinsdorf belatedly enters the select list of the greatest Tchaikovsky performances on record.

The previous Leinsdorf offering in this series had a very good-to-fine Schubert 9, an even finer Schumann 4 and a wonderful Wagner “Good Friday Music”. However much you enjoyed it, I should think that only those present in the Boston Symphony Hall on 15 April 1969 could be fully prepared for the impact of the present resuscitation.

The first pleasant surprise that the material is in colour, even if definition is not up to modern standards. The second is that Leinsdorf, who was usually seen – before and after 1969 – without a baton and said in a late interview that he felt freer to mould the music expressively with just his hands – marches on with a longish baton and seems accustomed to wielding it. Richard Dyer, whose eye-witness notes continue to be such a valuable feature of this series, makes no mention of this. It would be interesting to know more about Leinsdorf’s use and non-use of the baton.

But all this pales before the fact that this sometimes austere and pedantic conductor is on truly inspired and inspiring form, conducting with total involvement. This doesn’t mean that it’s all fast and loud: the Beethoven goes at a good but not excessive pace and there is plenty of expressive weight to the introduction. The wind phrases in the allegro are beautifully turned and the coda truly blazes.

Leinsdorf’s Beethoven is a known factor. If it wasn’t always this good, I suppose it doesn’t need a lot of imagination to see that, on the right day, it could be. But his Tchaikovsky?

Leinsdorf only recorded one Tchaikovsky Symphony commercially, the Sixth with the Los Angeles Philharmonic some years before his Boston appointment. I’ve never heard this, nor have I ever seen it spoken of with bated breath. Whereas the internet grapevine has been shouting excitedly about this Fifth ever since somebody posted an incomplete sound-only version, as Richard Dyer relates. I can well understand those internet commentators who say they’ll never listen to their other discs of the work now this is available, or one who actually heard it at the time and has been unable to find a performance to match it – not even Mravinsky – ever since.

On the face of it, Leinsdorf doesn’t “do” anything particular with the music. The introduction is brooding but also purposeful – he notes that it is “andante” not “adagio” and one senses a great latent power behind waiting to be unleashed. His “Allegro con anima” does not sidle in slowly, gaining speed later, he sets an up-front tempo straight away. It will sound very fast to some listeners. But this is his tempo, so the first crescendo is not accompanied by an accelerando and the hammering passages go at about the “normal” speed. Nor does he deviate from this tempo, except where Tchaikovsky actually requests a slower pace for the second subject. Leinsdorf plays this with great tenderness and free rubato, even risking some less precise ensemble. On paper, this might sound like one of Leinsdorf’s dogmatic demonstrations, and if he had subsequently taken the performance into the studio I fear it might have turned into just that. I must emphasize that here everything is white-hot and convinces as a free expression of emotions.

So, too, does the slow movement. The tempo is pretty steady but there is a sense of free-soaring passion which completely effaces any sense of the four-square. The waltz has an elegance which does not prevent exploitation of its darker moments while the finale carries all before it. The coda has an air of crude triumph presaging Mahler. Audience reaction is rightly rapturous and even Leinsdorf manages some smiles. It looks as though the Bostonians learnt to love Leinsdorf just as he was on his way out.

I haven’t ventured to compare this with other favourites. Once the initial impact has worn off I cannot believe that performance by such as Mravinsky or Markevich, which have provided inspiration to generations (and to me) can be wholly and eternally eclipsed. The case still remains for a cooler, more brooding approach, notably provided – in very primitive sound – by Landon Ronald. At the opposite extreme, the capacity of late Celibidache to bend your internal clock and suspend disbelief at his time-dilations is not to be dismissed either. What I am quite sure of is that Leinsdorf has belatedly entered the select list of the greatest Tchaikovsky performances on record.

Back to batonless Leinsdorf in black and white for the Mozart bonus. He puts on an incredibly autocratic face with black looks all round. Those used to modern Mozart will gasp at the fullness of the first attack, yet there is lilt as well as majesty, and delicacy later on, Leinsdorf shaping the music with crisp finger-movements.

An interesting filler, perhaps. But don’t miss the Tchaikovsky on any account.

-- Christopher Howell, MusicWeb International

LEINSDORF CONDUCTS BEETHOVEN AND TCHAIKOVSKY

Ludwig van Beethoven: Egmont, Op. 84: Overture
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Erich Leinsdorf, conductor

Recorded at Symphony Hall, Boston, 15 April 1969

Bonus:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Serenade No. 9 in D major, K. 320, "Posthorn": II. Menuetto: Allegretto

Recorded at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, 15 January 1963

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: Enhanced Mono
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Booklet notes: English, French, German
Running time: 57 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

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Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 5; Beethoven / Leinsdorf
ICA Classics Feb 2012
DVD
~~$26.99~~ $20.99

Szymanowski: Symphonies No 3 & 4 / Antoni Wit, Warsaw Philharmonic [blu-ray Audio]

Naxos AudioVisual

Blu-Ray

$16.99 Sep 27, 2011

This is an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc playable only on Blu-ray players.

Szymanowski’s Symphony No. 3 ‘Song of the Night’ creates a potent atmosphere of Persian mysticism in its rich blend of voices and exotic orchestration. His Symphony No. 4 is largely extrovert in character and has a prominent rôle for piano. Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 can be found on NBD0021. The CD release of Symphony No. 3 was Gramophone Editor’s Choice and given 5 STARS by ClassicFM (8.570721), and Symphony No. 4 an ‘unbeatable’ 10/10 from ClassicsToday.com ( 8.570722); the complete cycle acclaimed as ‘revelatory’ (ClassicalCDReview.com).

Reviews of the CD versions of these recordings

"Antoni Wit almost always can be relied on to deliver very thoughtful, beautifully musical, even inspired results, and there's no question that he conducts these works extremely well. The performances of both symphonies have a confidence and warmth about them that bespeaks a thorough understanding of Szymanowski's richly textured idiom. The Song of the Night (a.k.a. Symphony No. 3) has many of the same qualities that made Wit's Mahler Eighth so special: terrific choral singing, a bigness of conception that never precludes physical excitement, and very natural balances between vocal and instrumental forces."
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

"As previous issues in this series have shown, when Antoni Wit and his forces are in top form in the music of Szymanowski, they're pretty much unbeatable...The performance of the Symphonie Concertante, one of Szymanowski's greatest works, is superb. Pianist Jan Krzysztof Broja plays the solo part beautifully. He's got the chops for the big moments in the outer movements, but it's his delicacy at the start of the central andante that's most memorable. Wit, typically, directs the orchestra with remarkable clarity as well as power. The finale in particular never has sounded less "clogged" texturally, while the very natural engineering always leaves plenty of room for the sound to expand and fill the hall at those ecstatic climaxes that are such a hallmark of this composer. A splendid release!"
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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Szymanowski: Symphonies No 3 & 4 / Antoni Wit, Warsaw Philharmonic [blu-ray Audio]
Naxos AudioVisual Sep 2011
Blu-Ray
$16.99

Schubert: Symphony No 5, Rosamunde / Wand
RCA Nov 2008
CD
$17.99

PROKOFIEV: SYMPHONY NO. 5
RCO LIVE HOLLAND Apr 2016
SACD
$21.99

Arnold: Symphonies No 5 and 6 / Penny, Ireland National So

Naxos

$19.99 Jun 01, 2001

Malcolm Arnold's music is so well crafted and effectively scored that it seldom fails to make a good impression, as fine recent recordings of the symphonies from Vernon Handley (Conifer) and Richard Hickox (Chandos) have convincingly demonstrated. Naxos' ongoing cycle, recorded in the presence of the composer, equals them, and in this case takes the palm pretty convincingly. Credit for this rests squarely with conductor Andrew Penny. The National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland plays very well, but it doesn't have quite the bravura of Hickox's London Symphony. It's the interpretations that make the difference. In the Fifth Symphony, for instance, both Hickox and Handley fly through the first movement, then linger over the second. Penny takes a bit more time at the opening, allowing the delicate sonorities of the second subject the necessary room to blossom, and he doesn't linger quite so much over the Andante con moto, enhancing its oddly disturbing mixture of tackiness and despair.

This approach also works very well in Symphony No. 6's Lento, with its pop music inflections, while in the same work Penny's ever-so-slightly deliberate finale (shades of Shostakovich!) perfectly realizes the ironic hollowness of its ultimate victory. These aren't huge differences, but the opportunity to make comparisons among various versions not only increases admiration for the viability of Arnold's symphonic achievement, but it offers convincing proof of Penny's ultimate superiority. Nor does Naxos have to take second place in the sonic sweepstakes: this is one of the label's best sounding recordings from this source. Superb.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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Arnold: Symphonies No 5 and 6 / Penny, Ireland National So
Naxos Jun 2001
CD
$19.99

Shostakovich: Symphony No 5, Etc; Prokofiev / Ormandy
Sony Masterworks Jun 2007
CD
$17.99

SYMPHONY NO. 5 & OVERTURES

LSO LIVE

SACD

$20.99 May 12, 2015

Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the London Symphony Orchestra join forces once again for the latest installment in their critically acclaimed exploration of Felix Mendelssohn's symphonies. Commonly known as the 'Reformation' Symphony, Mendelssohn's Symphony No.5 was written in 1830 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Augsberg confession - a seminal event in the Protestant Reformation. Allusions to the symphony's title and inspiration are to be heard throughout; the Dresden Amen is cited by the strings in the first movement whilst the finale is based on Martin Luther's well-known chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott ('A Mighty Fortress is Our God'). Coupled with this are two of Mendelssohn's overtures, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage and Ruy Blas, both inspired by literary works. Completing the album, the overture Ruy Blas was commissioned by the Leipzig Theatre as an overture to Victor Hugo's tragic drama of the same name. 'Gardiner's Mendelssohn with the LSO packs a surprisingly hefty punch.' (Evening Standard)

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SYMPHONY NO. 5 & OVERTURES
LSO LIVE May 2015
SACD
$20.99

Mahler: Symphony No. 5

Alpha

$20.99 Mar 14, 2025

This recording of Mahler's Fifth Symphony by the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich under it's Music Director Paavo Jarvi, is the first in a complete cycle of Mahler symphonies. Jarvi has of course conducted Mahler's works many times in his career, but has waited for the right moment to record the complete cycle in the studio: the right moment not only in his life as a musician but also in his relationship with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich; the maturity and power revealed in the orchestra's recordings for Alpha Classics have been hailed by the music press since 2019. "Mahler truly opened up a new universe with the Fifth, in which he initiated an incredibly personal style of music-making." says Paavo Jarvi. "It is the very nature of it's opening - a military funeral - and of it's tragedy, in conjunction with the very idea of beginning a symphony in this way, which signals that something completely different is in store for us".

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Mahler: Symphony No. 5
Alpha Mar 2025
CD
$20.99

Brotons: Symphony No. 5, 'Mundus Noster'

Naxos

$13.99 ~~$19.99~~ Save 30% Jul 30, 2013

Internationally renowned and award-winning composer Salvador Brotons brings classical music into the here and now, depicting our contemporary world in his Fifth Symphony. It's first three movements are musical representations of the more negative aspects of the human condition, before the slow, final section offers a positive resolution. The Oboe Concertobrings out both lyrical expressiveness and virtuoso thrills from the soloist, and the Four Pieces for String Orchestra was the prize-winning work which brought acclaim and recognition to Brotons at the age of seventeen.

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Brotons: Symphony No. 5, 'Mundus Noster'
Naxos Jul 2013
CD
~~$19.99~~ $13.99

BRUCKNER: SYMPHONY NO. 5
LPO Jun 2016
CD
$15.75

Milken Archive - S. Adler: Symphony No 5, Etc / Adler
Milken Archive Mar 2004
CD
$10.99

SCRIABIN: SYMPHONIES 4 & 5 / PIANO CONCERTO
UNIVERSAL JAPAN Jan 2022
CD
$15.99

Toscanini Collection Vol 15 - Schubert: Symphonies No 5 & 9
RCA May 2007
CD
$17.99

Symphony 3

Kontrapunkt

$22.99 Apr 15, 1995

The increasingly popular Nielsen symphony series reached its fifth volume here including two pieces for string orchestra: Andante Tranquillo and Scherzo which are premier recordings. Earlier releases received a number of favourable reviews: KPT 321771 “...one of the most interesting interpretations available in the market now...the orchestra presentation is absolutely impeccable...” (The Jutland Post) KPT 32178 “...The Odense orchestra play with sensitivity and a total commitment throughout...” (The Gramophone)

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Symphony 3
Kontrapunkt Apr 1995
CD
$22.99

SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONIES 4 5 & 6

DECCA

$27.96 Sep 06, 2024

Klaus Makela / Oslo Philharmonic - "Shostakovich: Symphonies 4, 5 & 6" - Verve Label Group; Decca; Classical - "Whatever they are giving to those string players in Oslo, they should try and make it more widely available, because orchestras all over the world would kill for a string sound like the Oslo Philharmonic managed in this performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No.5. It was both the foundation stone and the life blood of perhaps the finest performance of this piece I have heard." - Seen and Heard International

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SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONIES 4 5 & 6
DECCA Sep 2024
CD
$27.96

Beethoven: Symphonies No 5 And 8 / Herreweghe, Et Al

PENTATONE

SACD

$21.99 Nov 20, 2007

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

3150440.az_BEETHOVEN_Symphonies_5_8.html

BEETHOVEN Symphonies: No. 5; No. 8 • Philippe Herreweghe, cond; Royal Flemish P • PENTATONE 5186 316 (Multichannel hybrid SACD: 54:16)

This disc represents Volume 2 of a set of the complete Beethoven symphonies currently in progress (the first volume, on the Talent label, included Symphonies 4 and 7 and was reviewed by Colin Anderson in 29:2). In a clumsily translated note Herreweghe refers to “nature” trumpets and “Baroque kettle drums with modern tuning”; these would appear to be the only concessions to period practice—by all accounts, the Royal Flemish orchestra employs modern instruments. This series would appear, then, to be comparable to the latest set conducted by Roger Norrington, with the orchestra of the Stuttgart Radio, on Hänssler.

Unlike Norrington, Herreweghe is unhampered by a tendency toward extreme tempos or self-conscious gestures. Though the tempos of the Fifth Symphony are analogous in swiftness to those of Benjamin Zander on his splendid Telarc recording, there is no sense of the kind of schizoid recklessness that marred Norrington’s Fifth, in which a furious first-movement exposition followed a more sensibly paced opening motto. What we hear instead is a superbly performed and exciting rendering of Beethoven’s war-horse. Orchestral execution is everything one could wish for, with crisp phrasing and spirited ensemble. The conducting illuminates the genius of the conception without in any way calling attention to itself.

In the slow movement, Herreweghe expertly conveys the sense of forward momentum without scrimping on the lyrical richness of Beethoven’s melodic invention. There is no sense of bombast in the triumphant finale, just a very satisfying feeling of rightness—for Beethoven’s creation and for this recreation of it. Herreweghe includes the first movement exposition repeat but follows Beethoven’s revision and eliminates the one in the Scherzo. The sound is resonant yet precise, antiphonal violins aiding in the natural balance. The listener’s perspective is intimate but not airless, allowing for atmosphere and impact. One interesting anomaly: the oboe extends the cadenza in the first movement recapitulation, replacing the one Beethoven wrote, but I found this to be an interesting and idiomatic gesture.

Herreweghe injects a muscular element, propelled by the timpani, into the Eighth Symphony, invigorating what has sometimes in the past been simply a lighthearted romp; there is lightness here, too, but the overall feeling is of vitality. Norrington, by contrast, tends to lurch through the first movement, so that whatever humor there is seems heavy-handed. The sound production he received possesses less resonant fullness than that on the PentaTone disc; strings, for one example, often sound thin and scrappy on the Hänssler CD.

The elegant little Allegretto, under Herreweghe’s hands, verges on the slightly pompous, while the third movement minuet becomes, for all intents and purposes, a scherzo, full of badly placed accents and miscues—all of which, in the words of annotator Tom Janssesns, “indicated that the Classical symphony now truly belonged to the past.” We are then propelled into the finale and its sprightly touches that clearly point to the future, and especially to Mendelssohn. Herreweghe and his Belgian colleagues dispatch the piece with panache.

This is a delightful and highly entertaining disc containing two fine performances of music that never sounds tired or routine. I look forward to the next installment with keen anticipation.

FANFARE: Christopher Abbot

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Beethoven: Symphonies No 5 And 8 / Herreweghe, Et Al
PENTATONE Nov 2007
SACD
$21.99

Haydn2032, Vol. 16 - The Surprise

Alpha

$20.99 Nov 01, 2024

'Joseph Haydn not only liked surprising his audiences, he also enjoyed a laugh', writes Christian Moritz-Bauer in the introduction to this sixteenth volume of the Haydn2032 complete recording of the symphonies. Take, for instance, the false conclusion of Symphony No. 90, composed in 1788: the music seems to have reached the last chord but, after a pause, the movement resumes to end with a powerful coda. Another example of Haydn's mischievous wit is the famous Andante 'with the drumstroke' that forms the 'surprise' of Symphony No. 94, a fortissimo chord designed to wake up audiences who dozed off towards the end of his concerts... In this volume focused on humour, Giovanni Antonini pays tribute to a great admirer of Haydn, Gioachino Rossini, by recording the sparkling opening Sinfonia of La scala di seta (The silken ladder), a one-act opera written in 1812.

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Haydn2032, Vol. 16 - The Surprise
Alpha Nov 2024
CD
$20.99

Mahler: Symphony No. 5 (Live)

BR Klassik

$19.99 Aug 04, 2017

All Mahler scholars have agreed from the very start that Gustav Mahler embarked on an entirely new path with his Fifth Symphony. Even for his immediate contemporaries, such as the conductor Bruno Walter or the music critic Paul Bekker, the Fifth marked the beginning of a new creative phase, and Mahler himself was also keenly aware of this – which is why he was all the more upset by the fact that his work was not understood at its premiere in Cologne in October 1904 and, even later, met with a largely negative reception. In 1905, following an unsuccessful performance in Hamburg, the composer complained: "The Fifth is an accursed work. No-one understands it.” It was only after Mahler’s death in May 1911 that people slowly began to appreciate the piece. The Fifth ranks today as one of Mahler's most popular symphonies. This is due in part to Luchino Visconti's 1971 film adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella "Death in Venice", which used the symphony’s world-famous Adagietto to great effect: the movement enjoyed unanimous approval from the very start, and has now advanced to become Mahler's “greatest hit” and the most famous work in his entire oeuvre. In its structure, the symphony does not follow the classic four-movement form, but presents us with five movements in three sections. Conceptually, Mahler relies on methods he had already tried and tested in the work’s great predecessors, the Second and Third Symphonies. The centerpiece of the work is a lengthy scherzo full of grotesque humour, inspired by Jean Paul, while its resting-point is the Adagietto, which certainly bears many of the hallmarks of Mahler's slow movements. The harsher sound of this symphony ushered in a new creative phase for Mahler – one that he developed further in the Sixth. The maximum use he makes of the tonal means available already clearly anticipates the Ninth, in which he begins to abandon tonality altogether and encompass the transcendental aspect of the music. This Munich concert event of March 2016, now released as a CD by BR KLASSIK, is an outstanding interpretation of one of the most important compositions of the international symphonic repertoire of the early 20th century. „Gustav Mahler himself feared that the „chaos!“ In his Fifth Symphony would deeply unsettle his audiences. The work has long since become popular, and the Adagietto has even become Mahler’s "greatest hit."

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Mahler: Symphony No. 5 (Live)
BR Klassik Aug 2017
CD
$19.99

Schubert: Symphony No. 5 - Brahms: Serenade No. 2 / Gardiner, Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique

SDG

$9.99 ~~$19.99~~ Save 50% Aug 31, 2018

This is a disc of pure delight.

This brilliant release features a live recording of the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique led by Sir John Elliot Gardiner performing Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 and Brahms’ Serenade No. 2 in A Major. The recorded concert took place in November 2016 inside the stunning acoustics of the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 was written mainly in September 1816 and was completed on October 3 of that same year just six months after the completion of his prior symphony. In character, the writing is often said to resemble Mozart; Schubert was infatuated with the composer at the time he composed it. Brahms’ second Serenade was written in 1859 and dedicated to Clara Schumann. The five movement work is scored for chamber orchestra, including double woodwinds but omitting violins, trumpets, trombones and percussion.

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REVIEW:

In matters of colour and timing, the playing of this early-Romantic repertoire has undergone its own revolution in the past 30 years. Under Goodman and Mackerras, even Minkowski, the Minuet of Schubert’s Fifth is neat but plain by comparison with Gardiner. Every phrase of the Andante is weighted and cherished. For its combination of tenderness, gravity and springtime joys, the performance may be set alongside Klemperer’s Philharmonia (with a first flute, Marlen Root, who has nothing to fear by comparison with Gareth Morris). The conclusion is quickly faded, but applause is retained after the Brahms. It’s a disc of pure delight.

– Gramophone

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Sale

Schubert: Symphony No. 5 - Brahms: Serenade No. 2 / Gardiner, Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique
SDG Aug 2018
CD
~~$19.99~~ $9.99

Schubert: Symphony No 5, Etc / Spivakov, Moscow Virtuosi
RCA Jul 2007
CD
$17.99

Sibelius: Symphony No 5 (2 Versions) / Vänskä, Lahti So

BIS

$21.99 Aug 01, 1997

REVIEWS:
BBC Music (3/98, p.59) - Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5) - This is a performance that grabs the attention from beginning to end; the Lahti brass have tremendous bite, the wind colour is in primary tones and the sweep of the piece has rarely been caught with such a natural sense of its ebb and flow..."

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Sibelius: Symphony No 5 (2 Versions) / Vänskä, Lahti So
BIS Aug 1997
CD
$21.99

Bruckner: Symphony No. 5
ICA Classics Nov 2011
DVD
$26.99