Hi. I'd like to get some other folks input on this. I've listened through the Paavo Jarvi/Tonhalle Zurich recording of M5 at Spotify. It seems a decent enough performance. But the recording itself . . I'm not so sure about. It appears to be one of those recordings where everything sounds loud. Yes, there's dynamic range to it. However, the low strings are so boosted up that it just seems to make everything sound loud. As if to underline my point, all the soft tam-tam strokes in the first movement are really audible, but the big, fortissimo tam-tam smash towards the end of the second movement seems no louder. Perhaps it's because I've been listening to the excellence of the new Bychkov/Czech Phil M3. Or, perhaps, it's just that every conductor and every orchestra on Earth appears to recorded Mahler 5 multiple times. Frankly, I think it's a mistake for these record labels and conductors to begin their cycles with the fifth symphony. As David Hurwitz says, it's the hardest one to get right. Perhaps more accurately, M5 is the most difficult one to make distinguished sounding. With all its Bach-like, contrapuntal chugging, it's very easy for it to sound routine.
The last Mahler 5 to knock my socks off, was the completely ignored Jaap van Zweden/London Phil. one (it's on the LPO's inhouse label).
Topic: M5 -P. Jarvi/Zurich Tonhalle . . . not sure what to think (?) (Read 215 times)