Symphony No. 5 [Blu-ray]

A great performance, but...
Bruckner's Fifth Symphony is a difficult piece to bring off: episodic and at times almost disjointed and lacking the inner drive and structural cohesiveness of its siblings. It seems that the composer, after the glorious Fourth, was trying out both new and traditional venues (an abundance of counterpoint) and exploring formal innovations which not always quite jell. As a whole, the symphony needs a firm grip on its development and, moreover, a stress on some of its proto-modern features in rhythm and harmony, in brief: sharp contours to the many outbursts and a loving hand with the lyrical passages. For me, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski's 1996 CD recording with the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra delivers all this, and more. On DVD, Günter Wand (in dated video and audio) is fine, Franz Welser-Möst with the great Clevelanders more incisive, though sometimes hampered by the reverberant acoustic of St. Florian.

Abbado's recording has received much praise...

superbly played and conducted performance
Bruckner's Fifth Symphony, composed during a troubled time in the composer's life, was competed in 1876 and had its first orchestral performance as late as 1894. Compared to the the more free flowing Fourth Symphony, this longer work can seem more episodic, rambling and even experimental. Heard in this superb performance by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra under the direction of Claudio Abbado, it sounds magnificent.

While Abbado's interpretation is certainly not barnstorming, neither is it limp wristed. Although utilizing a large orchestra Abbado approaches many aspects of this work more as a piece of chamber music-thus the subtleties of the wind and brass writing are gloriously displayed. His hand picked orchestra plays flawlessly and the whole symphony is expertly paced. While Gunther Wand's DVD version is also noteworthy , its filming is somewhat dated and the performance is less coherent than Abbado's.

Listening and watching on a decent home theater system I...

A tough symphony, well played.
I first encountered Bruckner in the early 60's, and have had Bruckner "phases" ever since, unlike Mahler, of whom I have been a constant devotee since that same time. My initial Bruckner opus was the sixth symphony, his most succinct, and which has remained my favorite since those days(great tunes, well integrated). From there I branched out to earlier and later works. The fifth has always been the toughest nut to crack for me.

Listeners first encountering this 5th. symphony, if they were familiar with other Bruckner works, could be forgiven for thinking that the first movement in particular was constructed from discarded pieces of melody from earlier symphonies, strung together with no overall plan in mind. Certainly, the developmental agenda is not obvious. However, things seem to get more cogent as the movements progress, although there are still instances where beautiful little snippets of melody are left hanging without resolution.

Abbado does a pretty good...

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