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Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 / Jarvi, Residentie Orchestra The Hague

Chandos

SACD

$13.99 Apr 27, 2010

Symphony No. 5 is widely considered as the finest among the nine numbered symphonies of Anton Bruckner, and ranks among his most famous works. In their first recording on Chandos for almost ten years, the Residentie Orchestra The Hague here performs the work under its chief conductor, Neeme Järvi, who has conducted the symphony with orchestras across the globe, and is recognised as one of the key interpreters of it. The reputation of the Residentie Orchestra The Hague as one of the finest orchestras in Europe makes it an appropriate figurehead for The Hague as a cosmopolitan city of justice, peace and culture.

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Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 / Jarvi, Residentie Orchestra The Hague
Chandos Apr 2010
SACD
$13.99

KEEPING SCORE: SYMPHONY NO 5

SFS MEDIA

DVD

$24.99 Nov 10, 2009

Shostakovich may have hidden a subversive cipher beneath the surface of his life-saving Symphony No. 5. After his opera Lady MacBeth was publically condemned as immoral by Pravda, the Soviet newspaper, Shostakovich knew he only had one chance to redeem himself. When he penned this fifth symphony, the composer was literally writing for his life. Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony explore the hidden language of this masterwork. As a bonus, the DVD includes a full-length concert performance of this symphony.

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KEEPING SCORE: SYMPHONY NO 5
SFS MEDIA Nov 2009
DVD
$24.99

Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring - Sibelius: Symphony No. 5

ICA Classics

DVD

$26.99 Sep 25, 2012

The ICA Classics Legacy series presents a collection of historical performances by some of the world's greatest artists. These performances are released on DVD for the first time, incorporating rare archive footage that has been expertly and lovingly restored. 'Luckily for all of us, it wasn't enough for Leonard Bernstein to compose music and conduct orchestras. He felt equally compelled to talk about music - to try and explain what made it tick, what made it good, and what made it affect US in all the ways that music does. The other piece of good luck was that Leonard Bernstein and television came along at the same time. They were born for each other.' (Jamie Bernstein), the films on this DVD are taken from the 'Symphonic Twilight' series of TV programs made in the mid-Sixties that were the brainchild of Humphrey Burton, then the newly appointed Head of Music and Arts Programs for the BBC. In his booklet notes for this DVD, Burton reveals himself to have been instrumental in bringing Bernstein the conductor to the wider British public, who knew him foremost as the composer of West Side Story. In 1965 Burton persuaded Bernstein to conduct the LSO at the Royal Albert Hall and the resulting Mahler 8 was a spectacular occasion, broadcast to the nation. The following year, they put together these programs, filmed specifically for the new television audience. The works Bernstein chose to record are twentieth-century orchestral masterpieces, for which he is known to be a champion. His recordings of Sibelius's Fifth Symphony for CBS Records and Deutsche Grammophon were acclaimed by critics worldwide, and his interpretation of the Rite of Spring in 1959 elicited an enthusiastic 'Wow!' from Stravinsky himself! They are accompanied on this DVD by an in-depth interview, given here as a bonus and subtitled in French and German.

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Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring - Sibelius: Symphony No. 5
ICA Classics Sep 2012
DVD
$26.99

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SYMPHONIES NO. 1 & 5
MDG Jan 2013
SACD
~~$24.99~~ $18.99

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No 5, Dona Nobis Pacem

SOMM Recordings

$20.99 Oct 01, 2007

A priceless document.

“Vaughan Williams may not have been a great technical conductor, but he knew how his music should sound”. The words are those of RVW’s friend and biographer, the distinguished critic, Michael Kennedy. I suggest that anyone hearing this revelatory CD would be bound to agree with that verdict.

Because Vaughan Williams was not thought to be a great conductor he was rarely invited to record his own music. This is in stark contrast to, say, Elgar, Walton or Britten, all of whom recorded their own music extensively. Yet the evidence of that boiling, incandescent recording of his Fourth Symphony that RVW set down with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on 11 October 1937 shows that he was a vivid communicator of his own works (Dutton CDAX 8011). That’s long been a prized part of my own collection, as has the recording of Dona Nobis Pacem, in an earlier transfer, but I never thought we’d uncover a recording of him conducting what is perhaps his finest symphony.

This performance of the Fifth comes from the 1952 Henry Wood Promenade concerts at which all six of the symphonies that RVW had written to date were played in honour of his forthcoming eightieth birthday. It’s worth remembering that the symphony had been premièred at the Proms just nine years earlier, also under the composer’s baton. According to Alan Sanders’ very interesting note the broadcast was recorded off-air onto a long-playing acetate disc by an engineer named Eric Spain. The results are quite remarkable. To be sure, there is some surface noise but it is never intrusive and a remarkable amount of detail and perspective has been captured. There seems to have been no attempt made to edit out the audience noise between movements and this adds to the sense that we are eavesdropping on an event. However, no applause is retained at the end and while I usually like to hear some applause at the end of a live recording – a minority view, I suspect – on this occasion I don’t mind.

As to the performance, well it’s a very fine one. There are a few orchestral fluffs but nothing too serious. Vaughan Williams gives a reading that is direct and unfussy but one that also conveys admirably the wonderful poetry of this radiant symphony. The first movement proceeds serenely yet it has a quiet inner strength. When the music quickens (at 5:11) RVW obtains lightness from the strings but the melody in the wind and brass has a hint of darkness. When the climax of the movement arrives (8:10) it has an unforced majesty.

Much of the music of the second movement is characterised by what I’d term a rugged, rustic lightness. In places it suggests to me the ‘Rude Mechanicals’ of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There are some occasional frailties in the playing but generally speaking the BBCSO responds well, giving a delightful account of the piece. At the very end the music dissolves up into the ether.

How moving it is to hear Vaughan Williams direct the glorious slow movement, containing as it does so much music from Pilgrim’s Progress, the visionary work that had occupied him for so many years. He achieves a real hushed intensity at the very start and there’s a lovely cor anglais solo. This ravishing movement shows Vaughan Williams’s lyrical gifts at their peak. Everything about this reading seems so right and he builds up to a glowing climax before allowing the music to die away in peaceful tranquillity.

The finale is a joyful movement and it comes across as such in its creator’s hands. There’s a real sense of hope in this music, despite its genesis in the dark days of war and RVW puts that across effortlessly. The gentle benediction of the coda is handled sensitively and with satisfying simplicity. The composer said of his Fourth symphony that it was what he “meant” and I think that’s true also of this deeply satisfying performance of the Fifth.

It used to be thought by some commentators, mistakenly but understandably, that the Fourth symphony was a depiction of the gathering political storms in Europe in the 1930s. In fact the cantata Dona Nobis Pacem is, surely, a much more direct artistic response to those menacing times and it’s amazing to find that Vaughan Williams, having produced such a searing work in the run-up to the Second World War, then penned a pacific work like the Fifth symphony while the conflict was at its height.

The performance of Dona Nobis Pacem presented here was given just a month after the work received its first performance from the Huddersfield Choral Society under Albert Coates. When Vaughan Williams came to broadcast it for the BBC he had the services of the same two soloists who had taken part in the première. This performance has appeared on CD before (Pearl GEMM CD9342) but this present release is claimed as its first authorised release. Presumably the source for this Somm issue is the BBC itself for Alan Sanders comments that this “is one of the Corporation’s few pre-war music recordings to have survived”. The Pearl booklet states that the source for their issue is “a private acetate transcription”.

I can state unequivocally that an A/B comparison shows that this Somm transfer completely supersedes the Pearl effort. The Somm disc is brighter, clearer and has an almost visceral impact compared with the Pearl. Not only that, the new transfer reports much more detail in both the loud and soft passages. Indeed, following with a vocal score I was amazed at how much inner detail is revealed – for example in the third section where the choir divides into eight parts, singing quietly and unaccompanied (cue 14 in the vocal score). It is simply staggering how vividly this recording speaks to us more than seventy years after it was made.

And the performance is vivid too. In the first movement Renée Flynn’s voice is caught with real presence – as is the case throughout the performance – and she sings marvellously. When the orchestra and chorus enter Vaughan Williams obtains some impassioned results. The second movement is a setting of RVW’s beloved Walt Whitman, as are the third and fourth movements. “Beat! beat! drums!” the choir sings. It’s a frenzied movement and Vaughan Williams whips up a real storm. The brass and percussion sound really vivid. The chorus parts are not easy, as I know from personal experience, but the BBC Chorus acquits itself valiantly. They’re rhythmically accurate – no mean feat in itself, especially in unfamiliar music - and the composer inspires them to singing of genuine fervour.

The third movement, ‘Reconciliation’, is at the centre of the work in more ways than one. Roy Henderson is a most dignified and moving soloist. Here there’s further evidence of Vaughan Williams’s conducting skill, for examples of subtle rubato abounds in his account of this movement and this could not have been achieved by someone who didn’t know what they were doing on the podium. It’s a most beautiful movement and the performers rise to great eloquence, none more so than Henderson, especially as he sings of the soldier finding his enemy’s corpse in its coffin. Whitman is, for my taste, somewhat mawkish here but Vaughan Williams in his music and Henderson in his singing transcend that.

The third and final Whitman setting is the celebrated ‘Dirge for Two Veterans’. There’s great cumulative power in the march that forms the basis of much of this movement. Vaughan Williams builds the tension purposefully and with skill and patience. The huge climax at “I hear the great drums pounding” is powerfully achieved as is the potent passage for orchestra alone a few pages later (5:09). The text is portentous at times, as Whitman so often is, but Vaughan Williams’s music has strength and conviction and this enables him to avoid sentimentality.

The fifth movement opens with a masterstroke. Over the sparest of accompaniments the baritone soloist sings lines from the celebrated speech made in the House of Commons by the radical MP, John Bright (1811-1889), in opposition to the Crimean War on 23 February 1855: “The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land.” Here Henderson’s hushed singing is hypnotically powerful. He’s quite chilling without any theatricality and he generates a tremendous atmosphere before the choral outburst, “Dona nobis pacem”. The movement ends on a more hopeful note with a chorus that, to me, anticipates the concluding pages of the Christmas work, Hodie (1954). Despite all the trials and tribulations of the 1930s Vaughan Williams could retain a sense of hope, if not optimism.

Dona Nobis Pacem is in many ways a work of its time but, in the sentiments that it expresses, it’s surely a work for our times also. It’s sincere and impassioned and a very fine piece. I’m surprised and disappointed that it’s not heard more often. It’s both moving and exciting to hear it under the composer’s own direction at a time when it was so new and also at a time when it was so relevant to the events that had moved him to write it. In this excellent new transfer the performance comes vividly to life. As I listened I found myself wondering how many of the performers may subsequently have become victims of the war that was not then far off.

In this year (2008) that marks the fiftieth anniversary of Vaughan Williams’s death I hope there will be many fine performances, broadcasts and recordings to celebrate his life and music. The year has started auspiciously with Tony Palmer’s wonderful new film biography, O Thou Transcendent. However, this superb release from Somm may turn out to be the most invaluable of all the anniversary tributes. It’s a mandatory purchase for all lovers of Vaughan Williams’s music and, frankly, a priceless document.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

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Vaughan Williams: Symphony No 5, Dona Nobis Pacem
SOMM Recordings Oct 2007
CD
$20.99

SYMPHONIES NOS. 4 AND 5
Zig-Zag Territoires Feb 2010
CD
$8.99

Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 / Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic

Sony Masterworks

$5.99 ~~$11.98~~ Save 50% Sep 02, 2022

Sony presents the next installment of Christian Thielemann’s complete cycle of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic - the orchestra’s first Bruckner cycle under a single conductor.

The Vienna Philharmonic premiered four of Anton Bruckner’s nine symphonies, including No. 4 in 1881 and has enjoyed a unique relationship with the Austrian composer’s music since 1873. Christian Thielemann, Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, Artistic Director of the Salzburg Easter Festival since 2013 and Music Director of the Bayreuth Festival, is his generation’s most esteemed interpreter of the Romantic Austro-German repertoire. In the midst of a mutually stimulating relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic, he conducted his first New Year’s Concert with the orchestra in 2019.

REVIEW:

From expectant pizzicatos and hallowed strings to the blazing brass at the finish, for eighty-two minutes Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic engage and illuminate us with this majestic, sonorous and deeply expressive account of the mighty Fifth (Nowak’s edition), captured during March last year in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein, resplendently and with focus within the generous acoustic.

It’s an eloquent and powerful performance, detailed, dynamic, as capable of cathedral hush and awe as being sonically magnificent in Heaven-reaching fortissimos, the latter avoiding coarseness and brass-heavy balances. Drama, too, in the way Thielemann adjusts tempos without losing the movements’ threads and invests such as a quiet bass line with significance.

-- Colin's Column

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Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 / Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic
Sony Masterworks Sep 2022
CD
~~$11.98~~ $5.99

Matsuo: Phonospere I - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5
Antes Edition Mar 1998
CD
$24.99

Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6 / Boult, BBC Symphony

ICA Classics

$14.99 Apr 22, 2022

Sir Adrian Boult began his long association with the music of Vaughan Williams in 1918 when he conducted A London Symphony earning praise from the composer. Thereafter Boult gave many first performances of Vaughan Williams’s works including the 3rd, 4th and 6th symphonies and Job was dedicated to him. Boult also recorded all the symphonies extensively in the studio for Decca and EMI during the 1950s and late 1960s.

The pastoral 5th symphony (1938-43) is considered a masterpiece based on Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress which some critics have suggested was a vision of peace for a war-weary nation, whereas the angry 6th symphony (1944-47) bears the marks of the war years in the opposite extreme, a portrait of a world laid to waste by a nuclear holocaust. Boult’s performances here, caught live at London’s Royal Albert Hall Promenade Concerts in 1972 and 1975, have even more adrenaline and excitement compared to their studio equivalents. Anthony Payne (Daily Telegraph) described the 1975 Prom performance of Symphony No.5: “one of the most taut and concentrated interpretations I have ever heard of the work”. When it comes to Symphony No.6, Martin Cotton, the music critic and writer wrote: “what Boult achieves in the four linked movements of Symphony No.6 is a sense of overall direction, and as he did in Symphony No.5, a strong feeling for the structure and emotional depth of the work’.

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Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6 / Boult, BBC Symphony
ICA Classics Apr 2022
CD
$14.99

Hill: Symphonies No 5 & 10, Etc / Lehmann, Queensland So
Marco Polo Mar 1999
CD
$19.99

TISHCHENKO: SYMPHONY NO. 5 FLUTE PIANO & STRINGS
NORTHERN FLOWERS Oct 2016
CD
$16.36

Beethoven: Symphonies Nos 5 & 6 / Edlinger, Halasz
Naxos Apr 1995
CD
$19.99

PROKOFIEV: SYMPHONIES NO 1 & 5 / VARIOUS
TELARC Aug 2008
CD
$12.99

Prokofiev: Symphony No 5, The Year 1941 / Alsop, Sao Paulo Symphony

Naxos

$9.99 ~~$19.99~~ Save 50% Jun 26, 2012

Written in 1944, Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony is one of his greatest and most complete symphonic statements. At its première he himself called it “a symphony of the grandeur of the human spirit”. The first movement couples considerable strength with unexpected yet highly characteristic twists of melody. After a violent scherzo followed by a slow movement of sustained lyricism, with a fiercely dramatic middle section, the finale blazes with barely suppressed passion. The Year 1941 is another wartime work, a symphonic suite written in response to the German invasion of the Soviet Union. This is the first volume a of complete cycle of the Prokofiev Symphonies with the OSESP and Marin Alsop, the orchestra’s newly appointed principal conductor.

REVIEW:

Alsop is evidently a sympathetic interpreter of Prokofiev, because the tempo and pacing always feel spot-on, and the character of the music rings true. Naxos offers exceptional reproduction of the vivid instrumental colors with appropriately resonant acoustics, so this series starts off brilliantly, with worthy performances that sound terrific.

– AllMusicGuide.com

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Prokofiev: Symphony No 5, The Year 1941 / Alsop, Sao Paulo Symphony
Naxos Jun 2012
CD
~~$19.99~~ $9.99

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5, Op. 47

SWR

$10.49 ~~$20.99~~ Save 50% Aug 12, 2014

The recordings of the gifted Shostakovich interpreter Andrey Boreyko have met with great acclaim; his Shostakovich’s Symphonies No. 9 & 15 (CD 93.284) were awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik in 2012. Shostakovich completed his Fifth Symphony in July, 1937 as a "response of a Soviet artist to justified criticism" – a critique which befell Shostakovich in 1936 over Stalin’s particular displeasure with “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”.

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Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5, Op. 47
SWR Aug 2014
CD
~~$20.99~~ $10.49

SYMPHONY NR. 1 & NR. 5
LPO Apr 2019
CD
$15.99

Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 1 / Noseda, LSO

LSO LIVE

$14.99 Apr 03, 2020

Gianandrea Noseda and the London Symphony Orchestra continue their Shostakovich cycle with a pairing of the iconic Fifth Symphony alongside the composer's First. Few pieces of classical music have been the subject of so much debate and discussion as the Fifth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich. Following the 'justified criticism' of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk the Fifth marked a turning point in his career, after which he balanced an even more precarious position as an artist under Stalin’s brutal regime. Completed by the composer at just 18 years old, Shostakovich’s First Symphony propelled him into the international spotlight. Breathtakingly unpredictable, the piece charts a course through soundscapes of blazing passion, melancholy introspection and caustic humour.

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Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 1 / Noseda, LSO
LSO LIVE Apr 2020
CD
$14.99

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 / Jansons, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra

BR Klassik

$19.99 Sep 04, 2020

“Increasingly, Shostakovich's music is captivating people all over the world and appealing to their deepest emotions. Almost like no other, it bears witness to a traumatic political epoch while remaining a timeless expression of existential human feeling and experience. For me personally,” said conductor Mariss Jansons, who died last year, “Shostakovich is one of the most serious and sincere composers of them all.” After the Sixth, Seventh, and Tenth Symphonies, BR-KLASSIK is now also releasing the Fifth Symphony by this important composer – performed live by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under its long-time chief conductor Mariss Jansons. After accusations of formalism directed against Shostakovich in a critical Pravda article had forced the composer to withdraw his Fourth Symphony (it remained shelved until after Stalin's death), the Fifth, written in 1937, was a phenomenal success. It premiered on November 21, 1937 under the young conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky in the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic. During the applause, which it seemed would never end, Mravinsky waved the score above his head for a good half hour - making it quite clear that the applause was for Shostakovich alone. Officially, the work was interpreted as the return of a prodigal son to the guidelines of Stalinist cultural policy. To this day the music has lost none of its fascination, and the Fifth Symphony ranks as one of Shostakovich’s best-known works.

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Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 / Jansons, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
BR Klassik Sep 2020
CD
$19.99

Bax: Complete Symphonies; Orchestral Works / Lloyd-Jones, RSNO

Naxos

$54.99 Jan 13, 2023

Sir Arnold Bax wrote his seven symphonies between 1921 and 1939, embracing a prolific period that drew inspiration from a variety of sources. From the dramatic impact of the Second Symphony through to the seascapes of the Fourth and hints of Sibelius in the later works, Bax’s powerful symphonic world is one of surprising and at times stormy vigor contrasting with the most intense lyrical expressiveness and serenity. The selection of additional orchestral works evoking nature and atmospheric landscapes fascinates and rewards in equal measure, providing an essential overview of Bax’s music in critically acclaimed recordings.

REVIEW:

Listeners should come away mightily impressed by David Lloyd-Jones's clear-headed conducting of this intoxicating repertoire.

-- Gramophone

Past praise of previously released individual volumes included in this set:

Symphony No. 1 - In the Faery Hills - Garden of Fand

This first disc in the Naxos Bax series offers warmly idiomatic readings of two early symphonic poems, as well as the First Symphony…finely detailed. In the two symphonic poems, more specifically inspired by Irish themes, Lloyd-Jones draws equally warm and sympathetic performances from the Scottish Orchestra, bringing inner clarity to the heaviest scoring. First-rate sound...

-- Penguin Guide

Symphony No. 4, Nympholept, Picaresque Comedy Overture

The RSNO handle the difficulties of these scores well, with some wonderful solo playing from oboes and horns. The conductor David Lloyd-Jones allows those refulgent textures time to breathe, without letting the music sprawl.

-- Times of London

Symphony No. 5 - The Tale the Pine-Trees Knew

Lloyd-Jones's intelligent, meticulously observant and purposeful direction pays handsome dividends, and that a well-drilled RSNO in turn responds with sensitivity and enthusiasm. In short, another terrific coupling within what is turning out to be one mightily rewarding enterprise.

-- Gramophone

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Bax: Complete Symphonies; Orchestral Works / Lloyd-Jones, RSNO
Naxos Jan 2023
CD
$54.99

Bernstein: Symphony No 2; Shostakovich: Symphony No 5 / Bernstein, New York Philharmonic

Orfeo

$16.99 Aug 10, 2010

In that same year - the last before the opening of the new "Great" Festspielhaus - Leonard Bernstein came as a guest with the New York Philharmonic, of which he was chief conductor. Thus one of the most impressive musical personalities of the age arrived together with one of the American orchestras richest in tradition. Bernstein's own work The Age of Anxiety, his Second Symphony for Piano and Orchestra (with Seymour Lipkin as piano soloist, negotiating agilely a musical language that ranged from Romanticism to jazz), impressed the public as much as did Dmitri Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, in which Bernstein realized brilliantly its grandiose climaxes and plumbed its musical depths.

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Bernstein: Symphony No 2; Shostakovich: Symphony No 5 / Bernstein, New York Philharmonic
Orfeo Aug 2010
CD
$16.99

Beethoven/Liszt: Symphony V & VII

Centaur Records

$9.49 ~~$18.99~~ Save 50% Jan 17, 2020

As is well known, Liszt wrote transcriptions of all nine Beethoven Symphonies. Here Frederic Chiu gives brilliant performances of Nos. 5 and 7. With a vibrant concert schedule, a legacy of 27 albums, and a stream of accolades from around the globe, pianist Frederic Chiu occupies a special place in the world of classical music. His non-traditional approach including interdisciplinary collaborations, integration of new technologies and emphasis on audience engagement distinguish Mr. Chiu as a maverick and innovator, a 21st Century artist.

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Beethoven/Liszt: Symphony V & VII
Centaur Records Jan 2020
CD
~~$18.99~~ $9.49

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 & Francesca Da Rimini / Jarvi, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra

Alpha

$20.99 Nov 13, 2020

Paavo Järvi, Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich since October 2019, here launches a complete recording of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies, the first in both his rich discography and that of the Swiss orchestra: ‘When I think of the Fifth Symphony, I think of vulnerability and hope. It looks directly into our soul. It is perhaps the finest of his symphonies. The famous horn solo moves me and enriches me every time I hear it… Unlike the Sixth, the Fifth still holds out hope for life.’ The symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini op. 32 completes the programme. This dark and violent ‘symphonic fantasy after Dante,’ a drama of jealousy, was premiered in 1877, at the same time as Swan Lake.

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Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 & Francesca Da Rimini / Jarvi, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra
Alpha Nov 2020
CD
$20.99

OHKI: Japanese Rhapsody / Symphony No. 5, 'Hiroshima'
Naxos Oct 2006
CD
$19.99

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

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