Octo_Russ

Mahler - Symphony 5 [Jarvi-Scottish National Orchestra]

Mahler's Fifth Symphony is my favourite among his Symphonies, it breaks from the traditional four to a five movement work, and this works a treat, it has a real cohesiveness to it, even though it must be noted that Mahler composed it with only three distinct parts to it, both the first two movements are in a minor key, and the last three are in the major, which shows turmoil coming to a resolution, and even glory.

I've listened to this Symphony countless times, but this is the first time i've listened to Jarvi with Mahler, and the jury is out, i really need to listen to this some more before i can properly give an informed opinion, but it's certainly not bad.

The movement that hit me this time was the second movement, full of very agitated brass, it seems this movement is based on variations of the opening fanfare at the very beginning of the Symphony, very nice clear recording, the brass sounding loud and crisp, and inner voices coming from the woodwind can be heard very clearly, some very nice low muted string work early on [2:33-3:15], followed by some equally nice rumblings from the timpani, punctuated by stabbings from the brass [3:26-3:36], and in the middle of the movement there's this serene string serenade [6:30-7:14], then changes start to happen, there's a glorious brass fanfare [7:47-8:31], which makes it sound like the piece is turning into a Brass Symphony, near the end the whole thing erupts in a brass blaze of glory [11:16-12:30], a real resolution and untying of the knots made earlier, damn!, that Mahler knows how to give you goosebumps.

Here's Gergiev conducting the second movement on YouTube.