Customer Reviews

Bruckner: Symphony No. 5

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I share most of the feelings expressed in the lead review. No one would mistake the Orchestre National de France of being a first-rate Bruckner orchestra, or on the basis of this concert from 1979, of being a first-rate orchestra, period. The standards of execution had been slapdash in postwar France, and it wasn't an overnight turn-around. This ensemble is the renamed radio orchestra of France, and its most recent music directors, starting in 1973, are Celibidache, Maazel, Dutoit, Masur, and the present conductor, Daniele Gatti.

By 1979 the old French timbre was gone -- no ore French horns sounding like saxophones underwater, or oboes squeaking away like mice in the woodwork -- and there's an acceptable proficiency. Nothing grand or eventful emerges on this occasion. I like Matacic's streamlined, forward-moving, sometimes rough Bruckner. His Fifth Sym. with the Czech Phil. appeals to me, and this is the same interpretation but done without affection or indeed much nuance at all. So mark it down as a good subscription concert reading of the kind to be heard in dozens of locations across Europe at the time. Today's French orchestras would make a bolder, more confident impression.

Lovro von Matacic, a Croatian conductor who had made an earlier recording of the Bruckner Fifth with the Czech Philharmonic, is heard here conducting the Orchestre National de France in a live radio broadcast in 1979. This issue is taken from the vaults of Radio France and published by Andante/Naï've. It has been released before by rather more obscure labels. Andante/Na'ïve has been releasing a number of these Radio France broadcasts and interesting as they are, not very many of them have caught my fancy. This one is a so-so rendition of the symphony that tends to emphasize the brass in the 'big' moments but lighten the textures in other places where one is used to heavier weight. The string choir seems rather thin. You will either like this or not, depending on your own taste in Bruckner performances. One has the sense that the orchestra is not settled into the piece, perhaps because (one assumes) they do not have much of a performance tradition with Bruckner. Further, I am almost certain that this performance is of Matacic's own edition of the symphony. That is what he recorded with the Czech Philharmonic a few years earlier. This is not terribly important as there are few changes from the more usual Haas or Nowak editions. Matacic has smoothed out some of the transitions in this somewhat ungainly work. Probably the most obvious deviation from usual Bruckner interpretation is in the third movement, which comes across as more light-hearted than usual.

This is probably not a good choice for a first recording of the Fifth. But those who have several of the standard recordings (e.g., Karajan, Sinopoli, among others) it might be interesting to have. [I wish someone could explain why the cover of the CD's booklet has a picture of a horse and rider racing a locomotive belching smoke.]

Scott Morrison