Sym 5 [Hybrid SACD, Import]

Well,

I bought this as I am a huge Mahler fan. I will keep my review brief except to say that this is simply the worst SACD (I have nearly 150) I have ever heard. I used two other SACD recordings of Mahler #5 (one with Zander/Philmarmonia/Telarc and one with Haenschen/Netherlands Philharmonic/PentaTone) and these two SACDs simply trounce this EBS recording in every respect.

Sadly there are no redeeming qualities here, no air, sparkle, nothing that normally that benefits an SAC over a redbook recording. The woodwinds do not sound like woodwinds, the horns are lost in any of the big orchestral climaxes. Some of the famous trumpet solos sound like they are outside the hall...

This SACD is living proof of the fact that just because it says SACD, it does not guarantee that is sounds like an SACD. This must be what the many audio writers meant in the early days of SACD, that there were labels who took poorly recorded DDD recordings and simply transfered them to SACD, and there is apparently not even any PCM or DSD remastering involved here.

Now, and to be fair, I do not want to confuse the horrible recording with the performance. I have a feeling that this orchestra is a very capable ensemble and Maestro Iimori displays a fine understanding and control of the music. However, any of the efforts that the orchestra was trying to do was lost in this horrendous recording, which is very sad indeed....

Stay away from this one!!!!

Japanese leader Norichika Iimori is little known in the USA. Nor is the Wurttembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen anywhere to being a household name among bands, not even, perhaps, among strong regional bands. Yet elsewhere I have remarked (because one can hear on recent releases) that a sort of Springtime renewal seems to be going on for many regional bands. Jonas Alber has made some lasting contributions with his Braunschweig ensemble. Maybe on the strength of this new release we might consider adding the WPR to the regional bands appreciation lists? And likely, we are well advised to keep an ear out for the maestro, Iimori. His main claim to student/trainee fame to date has been that he was assistant under Wolfgang Sawallisch in Bavaria; surely a formative and informative assignment for anybody with what in retrospect looks to be, Iimori's musical talent as a band leader.

Let's pause, though, because one reviewer has already written that the sound is awful. I couldn't help wondering if I had made a big mistake in ordering this Mahler fifth, given that review, Iimori's unknown status, and the fact that our band is a regional ensemble. Benchmarks for the Mahler fifth symphony are quite high in the commercial catalogs. My own favs include Barshai with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie (in a searing reading that gives many a big name band a stunningly fierce run for the Mahlerian money), plus Wyn Morris, Pierre Boulez and Lorin Maazel in Vienna, Sinopoli, Karajan, Daniele Gatti, James Levine in Philadelphia, Barbirolli, even Erich Leinsdorf in Boston ... and, well, add in your own favs.

Since I arrived home late to open the day's mail, I started off listening on headphones (Koss), to the RBCD layer of the disc. True high resolution surround sound would have to wait till the next day, and daylight, too. The first impression is that the sound is not especially bright; but close listening on headphones does not reveal anywhere near the flaws heard by another reviewer. Sufficient detail comes through that one can hear the several massed Mahler departments very well, indeed. Precise phrasing, and rousing vigor sweep through several opening pages, unabated, just as the music should. Nor does this band sound as out of recorded balance as one otherwise might suspect. One can hear the strings, woodwinds, brass, and low to high percussion (Mahler's touches with bells and triangles and blocks) clearly enough that everybody gets to make their particular musical points. No section obscures another, whether the music is relaxed to chamber size, or built up to Late Romantic Giant size.

The stuttering trumpet flourishes that begin the great march of the first movement are clearly etched, telling just the Mahler tale we need to get things going. Snare drums and cymbals gild those opening trumpet calls, also clearly yet discreetly etched. Conductor Norichika Iimori has a deft and delicate manner of winding up the first movement march rhythms while giving off uncommon lift and lilt. His view of the symphony thus comes off as far less fiercely on deep fire, compared to, say, Barshai and the JDP, and so what? His view is compelling, and the band seems able to carry things off quite well indeed. Listening on headphones exposes a hearer to everybody, pretty close up. If somebody is not pulling weight, or sliding by on fluff, it can be readily heard. Yet, part of the conviction that this reading carries through is exactly that everybody is playing so well, technically, as well as expressively. One example of this reading's just so touch occurs in those repeated hammer figurations - Iimori and the band players take very good care to limn the stepwise harmonics, so the insistent-tragic sense is communicated along with the sense of harmonic forward motion. The more relaxed funereal cortege music is hushed, also rather as it should be to make the composer's points. The wild outbursts go crazy but in ways that maintain a clear-direct topography for the polyphony.

Nowhere in the first movement would we likely mistake the WPR for Vienna or London or Frankfurt am Main....? Nowhere do we fail to hear what the WPR is doing and able to do in Mahler's fifth, either. Whether because of the home hall venue, or because of the chemistry between Iimori and the band players (or because of combinations of may factors), the overall sonic picture is big and rock solid at the bottom of what really comes across as a full-frequency stage in stereo on headphones. In big music like Mahler, one can do much worse than be careful to build the texture, from the bottom upwards. Thus, nothing sounds thin, underpowered, anemic. This band sounds like they are playing big-fisted, meaty, hearty Mahler.

An obvious catalog commercial comparison will be the Simon Bolivar youth band under young star conductor Gustavo Dudamel. It's gotten deserved attention, not least because it is the debut splash of Dudamel who shows great promise of taking the music world by storm in his guest assignments with Vienna or Berlin, as well as stepping into his new post as music director in Los Angeles. If these two readings can be compared, Iimori has just a very slight edge on Dudamel as a Mahler conductor. Dudamel's band sounds typically brasher and brighter, while the WPR shows off its wares in a more subordinate fashion which melds beautifully with their leader's musical sense of what this symphony says, and where this fifth wants to go.

I can hardly ever indulge these comparisons without recalling Walter Legge's famous remarks, to the effect that he always looked for conductors who could get fifth rate orchestras to play like second or third rate bands. With the current pull back of big name classical music label marketing, now reserved for a very few exceptions like Dudamel and Lang Lang and Volodos; one can still imagine how in past times Iimori might have gotten the publicists to send him up with the Seiji Ozawa treatment.

Another sign of just how high this Mahler reading rises is related to high resolution super audio surround sound. Fully massed, the orchestra can shake the listening room walls with earthquake bottom end energy; yet drop back to chamber music textures playing so softly that you may be tempted to turn up the volume. Let me say again that WPR is not Vienna or Berlin or Philadelphia or London or Zurich; but something deliciously involving and sensuous obtains in their very committed playing. Instead of focusing on their regional band status and a list of supposed technical deficits, one may simply get caught up in Mahler. To my ears, Iimori not only has WPR playing well, he is also a George Szell-like intellect who is holding this vast musical-polyphonic structure, all together. Sensuous then - and cogent, to boot?

The Sturmisch bewegt second movement may not have the most intensely full-tilt, marked Grosster Vehemenz. But the band departments still phrase with bite and edge so that reaching for accurate ensemble precision does not vitiate the impact of all forces unleashed in turns. The trio sections are delectable, not least because of Iimori's special way with that sway and lilt, even as he stays ever so true in distinguishing rhythmic shapes and accents. The big middle Scherzo movement arrives to take center stage. Its posthorn contrasts are tight, floated very nicely, thank you very much. Its wheel of fate woodwind figurations turn all the right gears. The Adagietto is flowing always slightly forward, yet nevertheless touched with charm, gilt-edged literacy, muted song ... all heightened, more by inwardness and restraint, than by melodramatic-fulsome heart on sleeve. Never for a moment do the WPR strings sound thin or under-nourished. Again, one notes their precise ensemble and phrasing. The long lines unfold, breathing, now hushed and reflective, now more passionate. The concluding Rondo Finale is played effectively, with Iimori and the band communicating coherence as well as vivid contrasts. This Mahler Five is a sleeper in the existing catalog; it may deserve our apprecation, not for what it lacks, but for what it actually embodies and communicates. Five stars all round for WPR, Iimori, what looks to be the plain sonic truthfulness of the band its Reutlingen studio hall.

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see both reviews  3.0 out of 5 stars