Anton Bruckner - Symphonie Nr.5 (BBC Symphony Orchestra - Jascha Horenstein) - 2000

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Anton Bruckner - Symphonie Nr.5 (BBC Symphony Orchestra - Jascha Horenstein) - 2000

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Anton Bruckner - Symphonie Nr.5 (BBC Symphony Orchestra - Jascha Horenstein)
Classical | EAC | FLAC, IMG+CUE, LOG | Covers | 1CD, 415 MB
Label: BBC Legends | Catalog Number: BBCL 4033-2 | TT: 74'44''

My admiration for Horenstein’s tireless championship of Bruckner and Mahler in Britain has always been tempered by what I actually hear on the recordings that have been preserved, whether live or in the studio. While his dedication is never in question, Horenstein had a serious interpretive weakness that manifests itself in virtually everything he did: an inability or refusal to make necessary tempo adjustments, particularly in sonata form first movements and finales. This habit, combined with a certain nervousness that sometimes gives an unwelcome sense of haste to slow passages, mars much of what would otherwise be a major achievement, from the first movement of Mahler’s Third and the “Abschied” finale of Das Lied von der Erde, to the second movement of Nielsen’s Fifth. Of all the composers that Horenstein championed, Bruckner suffers least from this sort of rigidity, and for this reason I find his performances of that composer far more persuasive than his Mahler, notwithstanding his reputation (the result primarily of studio recordings of the First and Third Symphonies, plus the BBC Eighth) among Mahlerites, particularly in Britain.

Horenstein’s Bruckner Fifth is, by and large, a terrific performance, played with tremendous authority and concentration by a clearly energized BBC Symphony Orchestra. Brass and timpani sound simply stupendous, and are captured in an amazingly lifelike live recording. And yet, it’s still not completely free of his usual mannerisms. For example, the passage in the introduction marked “Bewegter” (faster) should be played in a tempo close to that of the ensuing Allegro, slowing down to Adagio at the return of the brass chorale. The reason for this is clear: the same music, without the slow down for the chorale and played in the actual allegro tempo, leads directly to the recapitulation. Keeping the first appearance of this passage in the introduction’s adagio tempo, as Horenstein does, damages the movement’s symmetry and removes one of its principal dramatic surprises. Similarly, Horenstein ignores the Adagio/Allegro exchanges at the beginning of the development section, while later, in the finale, he executes a particularly awkward transition between the lyrical second subject and the return of the first movement’s principal theme, which he wishes to take at its first movement tempo.

These passages, however, while important as indicia of Horenstein’s conducting style, do not detract serously from the overall success of his performance. The sheer quality of the playing aside, Bruckner also benefits from just the sort of steadiness that Horenstein imparts everywhere else. For example, he has no problem at all differentiating between the Scherzo’s two principal tempos, and he doesn’t make the mistake that many others do of slowing (contrary to Bruckner’s clear indications) when the second subject’s thematic material reappears quietly in the woodwinds at the climax of the first movement development. The slow movement has both gravity and a clear pulse, while the finale’s monster fugue proceeds in measured fashion, but with an almost supernatural transparency. Best of all, the brass don’t run out of steam during the great chorale at the end, as they so often do, and Horenstein’s tempo here really does offer both grandeur and irresistible momentum. There are, of course, many music lovers who find Horenstein a much less frustrating artist than I do, but here is one performance to the excellence of which, I suspect, we can all attest.

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