This release is from a series of SACDs that feature Telarc’s early Soundstream (stereo, not multi-channel) digital recordings, now for the first time heard at the original 50 kHz sampling rate, which is well above a standard CD’s 44.1 kHz limit. This Shostakovich Fifth was impressive sonically when first released on LP in 1982, even more so in its subsequent CD release. But clearly there is more to the sound than had been previously revealed. Lorin Maazel’s interpretation, which struck some critics as bland and devoid of feeling, emerges here as taut and vibrantly alive.
The Cleveland Orchestra’s stunning playing is a benchmark even for this virtuoso ensemble. The recording’s newly revealed dynamic range renders the climaxes in the first, third, and final movements with tremendous impact, while the newly enhanced clarity ensures individual textures remain easily discernible. Maazel’s finale builds to an excitingly affirmative conclusion–the kind prevalent before the revisionist “ironic” ending popularized by Rostropovich (whose contemporaneous Deutsche Grammophon recording sounds positively flat by comparison) became the norm.
Maazel leads a thrillingly dramatic performance of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet (infinitely more compelling than Riccardo Chailly’s Cleveland recording of just a few years later), again enhanced by Telarc’s vivid sonics, which faithfully reproduce individual woodwind timbre while managing to convey the impressive amplitude of the sweeping strings and the thundering bass drum in the climactic love scene. This one’s a must-have for audio enthusiasts and music lovers alike. [4/12/2003]
