Haitink takes up a stance on the Fifth which is the very antithesis of Dohnanyi's clean-cut and somewhat short-winded reading of last month (Decca). If his recent account of the First (10/88) led us to anticipate something bigger and braver from his new Mahler cycle, then this hugely expansive view of the Fifth more than confirms those expectations. I am impressed but not entirely convinced by it. Essentially, the darker side of the symphony's nature would seem to have coloured Haitink's journey into the light: a heaviness pervades throughout; one comes away exhausted rather than exhilarated from a finale at once too earnest and too teutonic.
In that sense, the opening trauermarsch is tremendously imposing: an immediate touch of Mahlerian rhetoric—a big ritardando in the upbeat to the massive 14th bar where the thunder of military percussion lifts the curtain, as it were, on magnificent recorded sound. Full credit to Philips. Haitink's processional is very slow, grave, forlorn, but in true Berlin Philharmonic tradition, its great lengths are most impressively sustained. I would have welcomed perhaps a degree more plangency from the woodwind colours, but such key moments as that protracted cry from the heart at fig. 18 of the score (11'56'') are duly arresting, the stopped horns, in this instance, curdling the harmony most chillingly nine bars later. With the second movement Haitink takes us deep into the realms of Barbirolli, adopting an exceptionally weighty and emphatic line on the music, channelling all his energies into the creation of a dark, saturated sound. But one needs, I think, more impetus and drive to contrast successfully with the sorrowful second group, I miss Bernstein's unhinged fury at the outset (DG). That said, the oppressive surge of the music is powerfully conveyed, the moments of desolation—like the long solo for cellos at 12 after fig. 11 (4'29'')—still and concentrated.
Unlike Dohnanyi, Haitink does not short-change us on the bucolic reveries of the scherzo: the solo horn vistas (wonderfully played) open up beautifully, the transitory waltzes are enjoyed at leisure, there is rustic humour in that pizicato variant with its ungainly bassoon. The adagietto is slow—very slow and 'meaningful' (almost 3 minutes longer than Bernstein over what is a short movement)—and here I have further doubts. I am not at all sure that Haitink hasn't overplayed his hand, denied the movement a simpler serenity. The famed sostenuto of the Berlin strings ensures that its various strands are most exquisitely teased into life; and that the tempo holds—just. One must give credit too for the fragile intensity of Haitink's masterly approach to the climax (like one long phrase beginning at that most wistful of glissandos), though I have to say that his Berliners don't quite soar there as do Bernstein's Viennese. The finale is not, as I said earlier, the breath of spring one always hopes it will be. Haitink's virility and textural weight are, to my sensibilities, somewhat self-defeating. I like the grittiness of the fugato writing in the strings, but not the heavy unyielding brass tuttis. Certainly the playing is spectacular (just listen to the final chorale) but there needs to be more ebullience and spring in the rhythm, more light in the texture—ultimately, more charm.
Which leads me once again to the same conclusion—that the Fifth Symphony has been exceptionally fortunate on record (Inbal on Denon and the highly individual but glorious Barbirolli always demand consideration) but that Bernstein on DG is unlikely to be surpassed in the foreseeable future.'