Search - Bruckner, Osr, Janowski :: Symphony No 5 (Hybr)

3.5 stars -- a 21st century reading

Larry VanDeSande | Mason, Michigan United States | 07/07/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"An acquaintance of mine, who is a Bruckner critic for a major American classical review magazine, told me recently that Bruckner interpretations in the new century fall into one of two categories -- sleek and stremlined, like the recent super audio recording of the Bruckner Symphony 5 from Benjamin Zander and the Philharmonia Orchestra Symphony No 5, or with tempo so slow the whole thing is somewhat distended, like any reading of a Bruckner symphony by Australian Simone Young Bruckner: Sinfonie Nr. 2 [Hybrid SACD]. If his observation is true, this recording by Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (Swiss Radio Orchestra or OSR) under Marek Janowski falls squarely in the first category.



I say that knowing Janowski's total time for this performance of the 1951 Nowak edition is about 74 minutes, putting him in league with slow poke Jascha Horenstein and the BBC Symphony Orchestra Bruckner: Symphony 5 who take about 75 minutes to get through the Haas version of the score. While only a minute apart, there is otherwise little comparison between the two. While Horenstein is consistently imaginative and engaging, I had the feeling listening that Janowski was racing through, much like Zander did. It was a shock to learn the performance was of 74 minutes' duration since I felt Janowski rarely let the music unfold. Horentstein, an inveterate pusher in music, doesn't either but he has a more creative way of visualizing the score, especially in the many repeated sections where he seldom takes the same tempo on repeat or advances the same way twice over the same terrain, and he varies pacing nearly other phrase.



The notes I kept while listening to Janowski and OSR repeated a phrase: fast but not passionate. I found this throughout the first three quarters of this recording, as if Janowski was rushing for speed's sake alone. But, as you can see, his performance isn't fast. He crawls through the back half of the adagio, slowing the overall speed. When I compared it to some of my other favorites (all using the slightly longer Haas version of the score) from Furtwanlger (65 minutes) Bruckner: Symphony No 5 and Volkmar Andreae (68 minutes) Syms 1-9/Te Deum, it was only Abendroth's 75-minute recording Conducts Bruckner Fifth that seemed similar to this one.



Whether Janowski was too fast or my imagintion, one thing is clear: his conception isn't helped by the orchestra's undifferentiated brass in the opening chorale, an amorphous mass where one instrument is indistinguishable from the next. This improves later but the band's reputation as being a "regional" or second tier orchestra is fulfilled in the beginning: the strings perform with little sheen or distinguishing characteristic and the important woodwinds, which always follow the brass and strings in Bruckner's terraced scoring, are in no way special, either.



This orchestra was often ridiculed in Ansermet's day as having blatty horns, sour woodwinds and weak strings. While I disagree about the sounds Ansermet got from the orchestra in his heyday, I wouldn't argue Janowski's orchestra is among the front rank by virtue of this recording. The super audio recording doesn't always help, either. In particular, the reproduction of Suisse Romande's timpani is mushy save for the closing phrase, where the drumroll is heard over the final chords.



While many are most taken by the second movement adagio, I give greater consideration in the Bruckner Fifth to the way the conductor takes the long finale. Does s/he build the momentum carefully, integrating the repeating themes and intervals so, by the time leader and orchestra reach the coda, it has the character of inevitable apotheosis? Does s/he understand that concluding this symphony is the ultimate in mountain climbing for Bruckner, and that the two long double fugues must be strung together to build a powerhouse ending?



Janowski does some of this, it seems to me, and he is more successful than Harnoncourt with the Vienna Philharmonic in their super audio reading Symphony No 5 that, after a strong start, minimized the authority of the score with the conductor's wanton way and a poor finish. Another plaudit for Janowski, Suisse Romande and PentaTone is careful recording of the brass in the great finale. They sound much better there than earlier, possibly because the finale was recorded separately in a better session (the booklet says it was recorded in July 2009 in Victoria Hall in Geneva.) An offset is the disk manufacturing, which uses such wide frequency and volume that it is almost impossible to set your stereo at one volume and listen to the whole thing without turning it up and down regularly.



The notes from Franz Steiger, and translated by Claire Jordan, discuss the history of the composition, Schalk's disastrous 1894 premiere in Graz, and what the notes call the "real" premiere in 1935 by Siegmund von Hausegger. They say the 1951 Nowak edition is the "true form" of the Fifth Symphony; I assume that a slap at the Haas edition championed from 1935 through middle 20th century and today's authenticist renderings. Janowski's short bio says he has been music director of the Suisse Romande orchestra, based in Geneva, since 2002, that it was founded in 1918 by Ansermet and has had a number of distinguished directors including Paul Kletzki, Wolfgang Sawallisch and, in recent years, Fabio Luisi and the ever-popular Pinchas Steinberg.



My bottom line is this has a good finale that comes after three middling earlier movements where the conductor's speeds tend to be a little fast a lot of the time, the orchestra doesn't acquit itself well enough to match the recorded competition, and the technical details of the recording's wide frequency response require a lot of fidgeting with the volume control. The performance, while not of the first rank, was persuasive enough in the finale that I'll listen a few more times and, if I hear something better in the first three movements, I may raise my score. As it stands today, there's nothing I heard that would make me want to discard my favorites by Furtwangler, Horenstein and, especially, Abendroth. While this is the best choice in this music among currently available super audio recordings, I would refer readers curious about a more fully realized conception of the monolithic Bruckner Symphony No. 5 to my recommended versions for further exploration."