Monthly Archive: July 2019

MAHLER: Symphony No. 5 – Jascha Horenstein/LSO – Pristine Audio 

by Audiophile Audition | Jul 15, 2019 | Classical CD Reviews, Classical Reissue Reviews

MAHLER: Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp Minor – Barry Tuckwell, French horn solo/ London Symphony Orchestra/ Jascha Horenstein – Pristine Audio PASC 567, 76:55 [www.pristineclassical.com] *****: Through the tireless efforts of Mischa Horenstein, Pristine brings us a rare Mahler document, the debut of the London Symphony Orchestra’s work with Mahler’s 1901-02 Fifth Symphony, given with Jascha Horenstein 30 October 1960.  Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, famous for its opening trumpet fanfare, quotes a motif found in the decisively more “natural” and “programmatic” Fourth Symphony’s first movement; but here, the potent outburst heralds for Mahler “a new path,” purely instrumental, albeit rich with personal, even “medical,” overtones that indicate that fate and mortality will inform the Mahler ethos. This monumental work sports five movements set in three parts, in which the Scherzo provides a fulcrum between huge periods of emotional variability. Mahler in November 1901 had met Alma Schindler, the passionate would-be musician and veteran adventuress, whose affair with Alexandre von Zemlinsky, her composition teacher, had recently ended.  When she and Mahler met, instantaneous attraction compelled them to marry: legend has it that the famous Adagietto fourth movement means to serve as a timeless love-letter to Alma,  a wonderfully mounted, ecstatic serenade for […]