Like Kondrashin's version with the Concertgebouw Orchestra (Philips 412 069-1PH), which I mentioned in my ''Quarterly Retrospect'' (5/85), Kubelik's account of the Fifth Symphony emanates from a public performance when he was in Copenhagen to receive the Sonning Prize. If Kondrashin offered a lightning tour of the first movement, Kubelik goes to the other extreme and gives us the most leisurely view of it yet committed to record. However, his is a performance of some vision and obviously the product of deep feeling for this symphony. He secures the most rapt pianissimo tone from the strings at the very opening and indeed gets extremely fine playing from them throughout. The impassioned threnody towards the end of the work (fig. 97) has enormous eloquence though, moving on, some will find the very closing bars are more than a little inflated by comparison with Tuxen (HMV mono EM290443-3, 7/85—part of a two-record set) or Jensen (Decca mono LXT2980, 12/54—nla).
In the first movement the gain in breadth is at the cost of a certain impetus and I can imagine that many listeners will want things moved on. But on further hearing I found that the leisurely tempo ent a sense of space and atmosphere to the movement, which is rather special. The march section (fig. 10) has a menacing power that is impressive, and there is real mystery in the sparsely-scored episode (fig. 21-6) that seems almost to evoke a chilling lunar landscape. The G major theme has great tenderness and strength of feeing and the desolate clarinet solo at the very end has rarely sounded more telling. The second movement has no want of energy though, again, Kubelik is slower than the recommended metronome marking (dotted crotchet = 72-6). Those who like their Nielsen to be very taut and concentrated may not derive great satisfaction from this interpretation, but it strikes me as a humane, deeply-musical reading whose breadth is impressive. Again, I like the sense of space that he achieves just before the slow string section (fig. 92) by really observing all the pauses. The Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra are on better form that I have heard for some time, though as can happen under concert conditions there is the occasional trivia slip (the tentative horn entry at fig. 2) but there is great electricity and a sense of occasion.
The Concert Hall of the Danish Radio was the venue for a number of earlier recordings of this symphony, including the Jensen and if the recording is not quite so finely detailed as the Blomstedt (available only on an EMI cassette—TCC-2 POR545939), it has agreeable warmth and a completely natura perspective. (It is surprising how well Jensen's mono record survives the test of time.) Paavo Berglund (HMV) or Ole Schmidt (Unicorn-Kanchana) remain the safer recommendations, and have the additional advantage of being at mid-price. Kubelik's is a more personal view of the symphony than its immediate rivals but it is obviously a deeply-considered one. I would probably not want this as my sole version of No. 5, but would feel the poorer for not having heard it.'