Lahav Shani’s recording of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony was warmly welcomed by Richard Osborne in these pages last year (8/23), and this account of the Fifth also makes a strong impression. We are not short of recordings of the Fifth Symphony, and the work’s extensive discography has been further enlarged in the run-up to this year’s Bruckner bicentenary with new releases from Haitink, Thielemann, Nelsons and Poschner. Nonetheless, Shani’s interpretation stands out for its cogent presentation of the work’s architecture as well as the expressiveness of the playing and the refinement of the brass. The score’s many dynamic contrasts, such as the changes from f to ppp and pp to fff in the first movement, are precisely rendered, and Shani also brings a songfulness to the phrasing of slower passages and a dancelike momentum to the Scherzo that is most attractive.

As fine a Brucknerian as he already is, I suspect that Shani will deepen his performance of the Adagio in future years and be able to summon a greater sense of apotheosis at the end of the finale. In the meantime, however, he gives us a performance that’s at least the equal of the fine version by Markus Poschner (Capriccio, 1/24), and the recording has a near-ideal combination of clarity, weight and spaciousness.