Conductor Lance Friedel already gave us a fine Nielsen program for MSR Classics, and there’s no question he “gets” Bruckner’s Fifth. This in itself is no mean achievement, given the fact that this probably is the composer’s most idiosyncratic work. Friedel remains an artist to watch. Still, that isn’t enough to justify yet another recording of music that (to my mind at least) doesn’t offer sufficient interpretive leeway to justify the repetition. The issues in question are pretty simple once we grant that the conductor knows the work: Does the first movement hang together? (in this case, yes); Is the Adagio fast, in true cut time, or slow? (here, it’s slow, perhaps too slow); Does the scherzo have the necessary energy in its outer sections? (not quite); Can the brass section sustain the coda of the finale? (they do, but between the phrases of the final chorale the momentum dies)
Orchestras, brass sections perhaps excluded, generally hate this symphony. It is murderously ungrateful to play, taxing, and (seemingly) pointless in so many places. Just ask the bassoons. The fact that it sounds great if you’re in the audience offers small consolation. Friedel deserves credit for keeping his players involved through the whole 73 minutes, but the LSO still lacks weight in the strings generally, and sonority in the bass specifically. The timpani are very loud at the climaxes, and that makes everyone else sound relatively small.
These and other fine details of balance and sonority all could have been resolved with a conductor and orchestra who have either a long history with the music or the advantage of intensive collaboration, but surely it’s too much to ask of a guest stint like this, probably done for the purpose of making a recording. I just don’t see the point, unless of course Friedel wanted a souvenir purely for his own pleasure and had the resources to pay for it. There was so much else more interesting that he could have offered us.
