Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 [44:18]
Swan Lake ballet suite [26:29]
Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra/Christian Lindberg
rec. January-February 2012 and February 2013, Harstad Kulturhus,
Harstad, Norway
BIS BIS-SACD-2018 
[70:47]
The first time Christian Lindberg ever played in a professional
orchestra, he was manning a trombone in Tchaikovsky’s Fifth under the
baton of Evgeny Svetlanov. That tells you a lot: he loves this music, knows
it inside-out, and drives his players hard in a thriller of a performance
full of high romantic emotions.
Mostly, anyway. Lindberg’s pace for the first movement is one
of the fastest of all time, with a balletic pointedness and precision to the
dramatic effects. His slow movement too is on the speedy side. The back half
of the symphony breaks from this pattern: the waltz takes its time and the
finale is not the frenetic, pell-mell rush one would expect from Svetlanov
… or Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO, or Mravinsky. I don’t know
whether Lindberg is making a deliberate choice or if the Arctic Philharmonic
just can’t handle the speed - but they do in the symphony’s
opener. Even so, it’s not quite as exciting as it could be. On the
other hand, I’ll give them this: those fearsome, martial-sounding
interludes that act as transitions (3:40-3:50, 7:58-8:08) have rarely
sounded so amazingly weird and off-his-rocker brilliant. I love this
performance just for making me hear these passages anew and think,
“wow, Tchaikovsky was really a genius” in a brand new way.
Truly, I like this Tchaikovsky Fifth a lot. I think Daniele Gatti
and the Royal Philharmonic can be preferred, because of a truly luxurious
slow movement that makes the quicker stuff around it really pop. I’m
also partial to some old favourites. That said, this one’s a winner,
and you can’t discount the superb BIS SACD sound. It does what
Jansons’ now-classic reading on Chandos does at least as well as
Jansons and the Oslo Philharmonic managed. There’s something about
Tchaikovsky from Norway.
The coupling is the suite from
Swan Lake, and it’s
definitely well-enough played to merit yet another copy of this music in
your collection. That goes especially well if you have a high-end audio
system and really want the solo harp to pop out of the walls and into your
room, or want your drink to shake with the bass drum thwacks. Again, the
waltz is rather mild-mannered. The last few dances are an exciting
compensation.
This bodes pretty darn well for future Lindberg/Arctic recordings.
It’s also vastly superior to the blasé Neeme Järvi
Tchaikovsky recordings which BIS released a few years ago. I listened to
24-bit FLACs downloaded from
eClassical; the PDF booklet is lovely and my ears feel satisfied.
Brian Reinhart
Masterwork Index:
Tchaikovsky
Symphony
5
