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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A MOST SYMPHONIC READING, 23 Nov 2005
At the first performance of Vaughan Williams’ Fifth at a Prom concert in 1943, the symphony was generally seen as an old man’s musical last will and testament, a calm vision of a heaven he was expected soon to join. Later it was dismissed as merely a pot-pourri of themes from his opera, Pilgrim’s Progress (much as the Antarctica was later dismissed as a serious symphony for its use of film music from Scott of the Antarctic).Both of these views seriously underestimate the work. The first was soon put paid to by the violent opening of the Sixth Symphony, never mind its bleak finale. As for the latter, it could be argued (and I would) that this is the most cogently argued and symphonic of all VW’s symphonies. While the Fourth wears its Beehovenian ancestry on its sleeve a bit too obviously, the Fifth is a symphonic argument that is very much VW’s own. This point of view is reinforced by Haitink’s performance on this disc. Throughout his cycle, Haitink brings a refreshing foreigner’s view to this most quintessentially English music, placing the symphonies firmly in the great symphonic tradition of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, etc. through to Shostakovich and beyond. And nowhere more so than here. Haitink is not afraid to take the long symphonic view of the work. The opening of the Preludio is dominated by the harmonic tension between the D Major of the main material and the long sustained C natural pedal on the basses. When this material from the opening movement returns in the finale (a moment which is suitably dramatic in Haitink’s reading), that C natural finally sinks down to find the tonic that it seems to have been seeking throughout the symphony and sets us off on the miraculous polyphonic Epilogue where VW seems to be paying homage to his beloved Tudor Church composers. Haitink also makes clear the relationship between the rising modal theme of the Scherzo (the only movement not to involve material from The Pilgrim’s Progress) with the similar rising motif in the slow movement. This latter movement is wonderfully done by Haitink and his players. He makes clear the architectural importance of the arch of modal chords on which everything is based while still letting all the Romantic passion of the big climax shine through. The Passacaglia finale is very finely done by Haitink, though I will never forget a magnificent performance by Simon Rattle where the central section of this movement danced as I have never heard it before or since and where that polyphonic Epilogue climbed sublimely into the ether. A recording with the Berlin Phil in their present form would be special, I think. The fill-ups are played and recorded with magical delicacy and atmosphere – Sarah Chang’s Lark is as fine as any. All in all, a most recommendable recording of this magnificent symphony.
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