Best Of Classics 13: Mahler

Album review

While there's little to distinguish Adrian Leaper's 1995 recording of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor from myriad good performances, and almost nothing to make this release competitive with the greatest recordings, it is still worth some consideration for its solidity, consistency, and affordability. Leaper takes the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria through this epic score with secure leadership, and there's never a moment where things fall apart or even get sloppy. The musicians are all competent, and the orchestra is almost first-rate in its cohesion and precision. The performance and the recording are quite even in their levels of intensity, tone, and color, and virtually everything is audible, if not always brilliantly defined. Arte Nova has given this disc fairly high production values, so the budget conscious should give it a look, if filling a gap in a collection is all that's required. But for any who seek a truly great performance that raises the spirit from the despondency of the first movement to the delirious heights of the finale, this sober, business-like recording is not even close to the landmark performances of Bruno Walter, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado, or Georg Solti, and seems to stay well within a safe range of expressions, with hardly any passion spent, even in the Adagietto, where it should count most yet is notably lacking here. Because the search for a sublime Mahler Fifth is a deeply personal choice, one should spend some time trying out a variety of recordings and not settle on this workaday rendition.

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