Schubert - Symphony 5 [Bruggen-Orchestra Of The Eighteenth Century]This is a lovely original issue disc, a nice mix of two Composers, with different but similar works, the booklet front cover is gorgeous, a nice study of Bruggen, with rather modern furniture, even his shirt's quite tasteful, i like this picture a lot [pic by Kees Hageman].
So here's Frans Bruggen tackling two Symphonies from the early nineteenth century, the period instruments don't actually sound strongly 'ancient', almost as if Bruggen has purposely made them to try sounding more 'modern', but it's good to have that lithe string sound, it works well in these two quicksilver works.
It's amazing that Schubert Composed his Fifth Symphony while still a teenager!, he would become a more mature and serious Composer, this youthfulness would be gone forever in a few years, i very much find this a Haydnesque Symphony, especially the first movement, it really does have something in common with those lovely Baroque opening movements by Haydn.
Naturally i love Schubert's opening movement here, there's something unique even for Schubert in the 'joie de vivre' of the opening main theme, after a very short prelude, the irresistible main theme starts [0:06-0:25], and it repeats its motif again and again, three times in short succession, and then another three times in slightly longer succession, this whole episode itself is repeated [0:25-0:41], and even this whole block itself is repeated again [2:03-2:39], and again [4:53-5:26], it's just full of joy and zest, i find there's nothing else like this opening, what an original and exciting creation it is.
Here's Gunther Wand Conducting the first movement on YouTube.
