Octo_Russ

Beethoven - Symphony 5 [Ashkenazy-Philharmonia Orchestra] 

This is my favourite reading of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Ashkenazy gives a really high powered account of this work, brimming with electricity and frisson, hard driven in the first movement to some degree, but it works, a lovely recording too, nice inner instrumentation can be heard, this was a great experience today. 

Vladimir Ashkenazy is Russian, born in 1937, he's now 74, i bought this disc on Ebay, this coupling with ashkenazy has endless re-issues, but this Taiwanese issue has the best picture, a portrait of Ashkenazy, with skilful lighting of dark and light.

The first movement is tremendous, an opening that really does shock, fantastic use of the braying brass, excellently played and caught in the recording, but it's the last movement that makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, the excitement is generated at the end of the third movement, as the timpani create quiet 'heartbeats' [track 3 - 4:42-5:18], that get louder and faster, creating the equivalent adrenaline in our own heartbeats, and then the fourth movement explosion [track 4 - 0:00+], like a release of pent up energy, it's a magical moment, and just listen to that brass! [0:35-0:47], followed by the equivalent string reply [0:47+], but for me it's when the 'explosive' opening returns in power and glory the second time [2:06+] that it just sounds better on repetition, 

Here's Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting the fourth movement on YouTube, the actual start of the movement is at 4:57.