As with Sawallisch's Symphonies Nos. 4 and 7 (12/92), it isn't hard to find things to admire. Again the recordings offer a satisfying balance of clarity and atmosphere, and there's the same control, unexaggerated shapeliness, sharp attention to detail and muscular tension. The Pastoral impresses consistently through the first three movements. The last word I'd use to describe Sawallish is 'expansive'—dynamic rise and fall and very occasional rubato are always tastefully measured—but there is a sense of opening out in the first movement, especially in the long crescendos at its heart. The ''Scene by the brook'' is lovely without being languid; even there the rhythms are taut.
It's in the storm that the doubts weigh in. Aren't the raindrops and the thunderbolts too well-drilled, too neat—Thor in a three-piece suit? After this it's back to the fine shaping and even flow of the first two movements—enjoyable, but some way short of ''cheerful and thankful feelings'' at the passing of an awe-inspiring natural event. No challenges to the old VPO/Bohm on DG here.
Not surprisingly, the Fifth Symphony—the very embodiment of storm, stress and ecstatic uplift—is less convincing. The sound in that famous 'fate' opening is stern enough, and Sawallisch's refusal to linger over Beethoven's quaver rests heightens the springboard effect: good things can come of this. But increasingly there's that measured quality even in the most violent outbursts one senses careful pre-planning. That's one of the reasons why the Andante's C major fanfares don't blaze (the restrained playing is another). And I wasn't in the least surprised to find Sawallisch resorting to the old device of 'harmonizing' the tempos of the scherzo and finale; to follow Beethoven's suggestion, a head-on collision between a fast 3/4 and a grittier, more deliberate two-in-a-bar, would have been out of character—too volatile. And that's the characteristic I miss most of all in Sawallisch's Beethoven. If you don't see what I mean, put Sawallisch beside the Carlos Kleiber (DG) or Nikolaus Harnoncourt (a Gramophone Award winner on Teldec) performances in which the most familiar events are transformed into thrilling discoveries.'