Still they come, despite what the late Michael Oliver might have referred to as ‘an insane overproduction’. Both these latest Mahler Fifths are composite relays of the kind that present attractive economies of scale to the participants and a ready-made target audience of receptive concertgoers, inviting comparison with the similarly unvarnished, if overrated, Rudolf Barshai account. Significantly, the applause is left in.

And there the similarities end. Haitink’s performance is in some ways typical of his latter-day music-making. The key words in my listening notes are ‘slow’ and ‘serious’. Another is ‘dense’, though ‘homogeneous’ might be a kinder description of an orchestral sonority untouched by the postmodern urge to lift the drapes. The Adagietto alone has speeded up in line with current opinion, now lasting a mere 10’26”: a marked retreat from his epic Berlin Philharmonic remake which stretched the music to nearly a quarter of an hour (Philips, 7/89 – nla).

Unfortunately the musicians who supported the conductor ably enough in his live Sixth (Naïve, 11/02) sound nonplussed at times in the Fifth. The distinctly un-Gallic uproar of the second movement comes off worst of all. Haitink’s ponderous (would-be helpful?) tread means that this is scarcely ‘Violently agitated, with the utmost vehemence’ as marked, yet, even sapped of the necessary drive, ensemble is poor by modern standards. For all the incidental beauties offered elsewhere, such effortful stuff scarcely merits wider circulation.

Oramo demonstrates much tighter control over his forces in the difficult corners, and he can refine and rebalance familiar textures to exquisite effect, as in the restrained sections of that same movement. The string glissandi at the end are conscientiously handled – shame about the patch of feedback around 13’30”. More profitably, aficionados will listen out for some wonderfully varied string articulation in the tender, fashionably lightweight Adagietto.

Interpretatively fresh and lithe in sonority, Oramo falls somewhere between the safety-first Claudio Abbado and the throw-caution-to-the-winds Daniele Gatti (Conifer, 5/98 – nla). This is, on its own terms, a convincing reading – the finale even essaying the requisite deftness – but for all Oramo’s youthful vigour and quick reflexes, the results lack sufficient sense of ease. Throughout, some magic ingredient in Mahler’s lyrical invention never quite casts its spell. One does not need to be convinced by Leonard Bernstein’s specifically Jewish inflection of the line to feel something missing in the younger man’s response to the elegiac second strain of the opening funeral march (violins and cellos from bar 34). There are other such po-faced, rather empty passages which may have older hands pining for the natural grace of a Rafael Kubelík.

Perhaps it’s simply that these are early days in Oramo’s career as a Mahler conductor. As for the recording per se, while the deep bass response might impress, everything else could do with a little more warmth and distance: brass sonorities especially can seem unduly parched. And why place the microphones this close to the rostrum when the maestro is so prone to noisy exhortations and exhalations? Headphone users are duly warned!