Beethoven - Symphony 5 [Rattle-Wiener Philharmoniker]Well the Englishman Simon Rattle is now in his mid fifties, he now lives in Germany, where he's the Conductor of possibly the greatest Orchestra in the world, really at the top of his game.
He made this live recording in 2000, with an Orchestra i'm not familiar with him Conducting, i admit he's 'different', trying to say something new with the same old works, i certainly enjoyed his Fifth, one thing i notice about Rattle conducting this, is his penchant to have quiet unnoticed voices be given greater prominence, the piccolos in the final movement doing their 'magic flute' impersonations for instance, he lets individual voices shine out of the mix, also he seems a 'staccato' conductor, one who likes rhythms and chunky corners on phrases, rather than some soupy legato, where everything blends in, i guess one criticism is that in his search for saying something 'new', and noticing little touches, the bigger long term picture can take a back seat.
The final movement is thrilling, it starts off with a triumphant glorious fanfare on the trumpets/brass, i can just imagine the trumpet bells pointed skyward, as announcing some pageant or something, and it's this fanfare that comes back again and again [1:57 & 6:02], the whole movement grows naturally out of the preceding third movement, and he even uses a return of the end of the third movement to re-announce the fourth again, in a glorious repetition, it really does work, i believe the transition between third and fourth gave Beethoven a headache, it certainly has 'glory' stamped all over it, the opening movement of the Symphony is so revolutionary, but it's balanced out by the final movement also being so revolutionary, what an incredible end to an incredible Symphony.
Here's Simon Rattle, this time conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker in the last movement on YouTube.
