Manfred Honeck has been Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony since 2008, during which time they have released many discs together on Reference Recordings, including several that have earned recognition as Editor’s Choice: Dvořák, Mahler and ‘Promethean’ Beethoven (as described by Richard Osborne, 12/15) among others. Of their Tchaikovsky symphonies, I found their Pathétique slightly disengaged – ‘proficient but lacking in emotion’ (7/16) – while Andrew Farach-Colton felt their Fourth was fussy on occasion, albeit with a thrilling coda (9/20).

And now they come to the Fifth. Or rather, they return to it. The Fifth Symphony was the first major work Honeck conducted with the Pittsburgh Symphony back in 2006, a performance documented on Exton. Edward Seckerson reviewed that disc and found it ‘fiery and impassioned’ (12/11). By now, Honeck and Pittsburgh are a well-oiled team in prime condition. This new album was also recorded in concert in the historic Heinz Hall. Their earlier Fifth is excellent but this one is an absolute belter, rightly earning the Recording of the Month accolade.

Sixteen years on, Honeck’s timings are more or less identical (don’t let the finale fool you: Exton retains applause, hence the longer track time). The differences come with Honeck’s tendency to be more extreme with dynamics, scaling up the impetuosity, plus the superior audio quality. Reference Recordings plunges the listener deep into the orchestra; the stereo picture is wider – double basses on your extreme left – and inner detail tells. Whereas textures in their Pathétique sometimes sounded muddy, here there is clarity.

Honeck’s clarinet starts on a velvety piano, the hairpins having greater dynamic range. The Pittsburgh double basses growl and grunt, especially at sforzandos. The strings feel more richly upholstered now than in 2006. The brass bite and there’s real urgency to the fierce timpani crescendos. Honeck’s accelerandos and stringendos are rapid and properly thrilling. He arguably slows too much at the Poco meno animato (bar 385, track 1, 10'23"), but the fizzing pizzicatos that follow are superbly captured by the recording team.

Honeck is more inclined to pull rubatos around now, but they feel so right, lending the performance a sense of volatility, teetering on the brink. The bassoon’s lugubrious trudge reminds us that Fate is never far away in this symphony and the ominous basses in the closing bars are chilling.

In the Andante cantabile, the Pittsburgh horn tone is lovely and rounded in its heart-stopping solo, beautifully delicate, whereas in 2006 it sounded wan and tentative (‘soft-grained’ was ES’s descriptor). Later, the clarinet solo pulls back on its repeated phrase. Honeck’s emotional arc is bigger this time around; the peaks are higher, the chasms deeper. In the movement’s central climax (track 2, 7'30"), the brass have an almost Soviet-style rasp, immense and terrifying.

The Valse has Viennese grace, as one would expect from a conductor who played viola in the Vienna Philharmonic, but the woodwinds burble merrily in the central episode before Honeck swings effortlessly back into the dance. But the clarinet interjections and string pizzicatos in the coda tell you that something bad is about to happen … and Honeck segues attacca straight into the finale, which is propelled along with vigour, bursting with character and life.

‘Honeck doesn’t flinch from pulling out the big guns in the finale’, wrote ES in 2011, and that truth holds here. Some of his tempo changes are exaggerated – the Poco più animato (bar 296, track 4, 6'50") sets off like a rocket and the ritardando leading into the coda is milked for all its epic worth, but that only heightens the emotions further. That coda is deliberate and grim – this is no moment of victory, but of stoic determination in the face of fate, chin jutting out, fighting back the tears. This is one of the best new Tchaikovsky Fifths I’ve heard for ages.

Honeck likes to programme his albums inventively, often with a new work, a rarity or a piece he himself has arranged. The unusual filler this time is Erwin Schulhoff’s Five Pieces for String Quartet orchestrated by Tomáš Ille and Honeck and performed in the same concert as the Tchaikovsky. They’re dancelike with a witty Shostakovich flavour, quirky, occasionally grotesque. Schulhoff dedicated them to Darius Milhaud and I can imagine the Frenchman enjoying them, the sultry tango milonga in particular. But honestly, even if this Fifth came with no coupling, I’d still recommend it. Readers who already own the Exton recording should treat themselves to an upgrade.

The booklet is fabulous. Honeck writes his own notes – 16 pages of them, including detailed musical analysis, referencing specific bars in the score (with timing cues) with respect to his ideas on interpretation. A class act.