To make Beethoven’s Fifth sound fresh seems a Herculean task, yet that’s what Teodor Currentzis accomplishes here in a relentlessly intense performance that will likely keep you on the edge of your seat from the first note to the last. Such extremity comes at a cost, however.

The first movement is a juggernaut. Even in the momentum-stopping fermatas of the opening bars, Currentzis seems anxious to press forwards, and from there the trajectory remains precipitous. Despite the breathless phrasing and breakneck pace (hitting Beethoven’s metronome marking squarely on the nose), his MusicAeterna orchestra play with astonishing rhythmic security and poise, revealing how much care has been lavished on detail. Yet, while the conductor is generally scrupulous in following the composer’s markings, he’s not shy about being free with the text. Listen to the unwritten diminuendos at 3'08", say, or to the vertiginous swells he adds at 5'38". At times, his attention to detail spills over into fussiness – the laboured phrasing at the opening of the Andante con moto, for instance. Andrew Manze, in his recent recording (Pentatone, 3/20), demonstrates how it’s possible to highlight the melody’s shifting metric emphases while maintaining a dolce, singing line.

Currentzis seizes upon the slow movement’s contrasts, giving the martial C major music a hard edge – at times it takes on a mechanistic character – that throws the lyrical moments into greater relief, and there’s some really lovely, tender playing, particularly near the movement’s end. I very much like the prickly off-beat accents and proto-Mahlerian creepiness of the Scherzo’s return, but not the oddly joyless, machine-gun-like rat-a-tat of the Trio section. And while I appreciate the finale’s drive, rhythmic snap and lack of bombast, there’s a brutality to it that by the end feels quite pugilistic.

Certainly, Currentzis’s interpretation is worth hearing, although for all its ferocity, his is a fairly narrow view of the Fifth. Of recent releases, the aforementioned Manze or Blomstedt (Accentus, A/17) provide us with a fuller – and far more humane – vision.