Pickwick, who distribute IMG Records, already have a distinguished, albeit sober-sided account of the Fifth in the catalogue from Skrowaczewski, so it is a surprise to find them reviving this digital recording of a slightly earlier vintage. At medium price, the generous programme is attractive, but the music-making is not quite of the first rank and the packaging remiss in giving no inkling that the tapes are not brand new. The main work goes well enough until the return of the long-limbed second subject—too slow to make structural sense. Nor is there sufficient sense of pain and loss in the closing pages. The scherzo feels cumbersome because its rhythms are not articulated with sufficient crispness, and the Largo, relatively free-flowing at the start, tends to push forward abruptly into imperfectly executed climaxes, the xylophone uncomfortably out of sync at one point. The finale is raucous and blowzy. Again there seems to be some lack of rhythmic definition and tonal weight, only partly a factor of the cloudy acoustic. The calm before the storm of the final, much-discussed (anti-?) peroration is subdued yet somehow not quite 'inner' enough, the climax itself (mercifully?) old-fashioned in its avoidance of overt politicking. The shorter pieces, relatively inconsequential, are better served, so the disc may yet suit the completist.
The symphonic poem October is rated surprisingly highly by some commentators. Ashkenazy's is probably the recording to have—it is certainly the best engineered—but the present one is more than a dutiful run-through. The recording is 'churchy', perfectly acceptable without being ideally focused.'