David Zinman’s Mahler has been warmly received in many quarters. He is proceeding through the cycle chronologically and the Fifth will not disappoint those who like their Mahler sane and lucid. Sound quality remains near state-of-the-art even if there seems to be too much hall ambience for absolute clarity this time. The orchestra has been carefully drilled – individual members are named in the attractive, copiously annotated booklet – but it is idle to pretend that Zürich can offer either the characterful solo playing or the corporate weight of Chicago, Vienna or Berlin. That the back inlay and the track-listing misrepresent the work’s tripartite structure matters little. The real problem, predictable for older listeners (and reviewers) in thrall to Abbado, Bernstein or any one of several maestros past, is that Zinman’s brand of music-making may come across as undercharacterised. The trumpet fanfare announcing the funeral march is clipped and clear, setting the scene for a performance that is just too cute, overly keen to eschew hysteria. The patient old-world pacing of the Adagietto is the only surprise, eminently mainstream at 10'45" and genuinely rapt if still somewhat cool. Light-textured, cleanly articulated and deftly paced, the finale, a delight at first, risks sounding inconsequential as Mahler musters his forces for one last grandiose apotheosis of the second-movement chorale theme. Sadly the brass are so puny that the moment passes almost unnoticed. You may of course feel differently.