BaL 22.04.23 - Schubert: Symphony no. 5 in B flat D. 485

[Ein Heldenleben]

SCHUBERT Symphony No.5 /B’Rock Orchestra/René Jacobs (Pentatone CD)

Like JEG and Harnoncourt, Jacobs is an analytic visionary, a conductor who always sees the whole work and shapes it and his manoeuvres accordingly; but sometimes throws in a local disordering for fun, to make us listen, prick-up-your-ears. Seeks, above all, to make it new. “Charming” Schubert? Oh God, anything but that; lets start with discipline; sing dreamy songs and find the wistful in the pastoral; then have some fun and pitch into the wild vivace madness for the final flourish. The score is just the beginning, right?

So Jacob’s 1st movement is quite strictly controlled, but with his vital young band, never less than fully alive and with a glistening translucency of tone from winds and strings alike. Solos to ponder, to marvel at; play on repeat. A lovely, flowing andante……(keep moving, keep moving on…)…
Then the fun & games start in the minuet: tempo épater-les-bourgeois, a sudden/prolonged pause…..a galop to the end!
Very quick, more scherzo than minuet, but with swing and schwung and fluidity of line; airy, lofted rhythms. Very danceable - for magic movers....

The finale is even faster, dramatically direct - but just listen to what happens at the second appearance of the 2nd subject; by the end of the development we've arrived at a laidback state of grace; or it is nowhere fast? The respite is brief.
With such effortless agility, the movement has never sound so fully (and micro-dynamically) alive as this. Repeats are scarcely ever literal with Jacobs, always creatively exploited (sometimes startlingly so); your focus sharpens on the momentary, unexpected prolongation of a pause. His brilliantly virtuoso players respond with marvellous inner dialogue, a terrific sense of fun in the exchanges they throw across the acoustic.

With state-of-the-art recorded sound, this is the most original and exciting 5th I’ve heard so far, and easily my No.1 recommend for any ears seeking a refresher: adventure and enlightenment in the one package tour.

(Not the least of the attractions of Jacobs’ cycle are his extraordinary notes to all of the symphonies in the Pentatone booklets. He analyses every movement, from section to section, in great and revealing detail, both from the harmonic/thematic/structural POV and in richly emotive and poetic language too, with the breadth and depth of musical understanding only available to the most gifted performers.
He notices things others may not, e.g. the thematic connection between the 5th’s minuet and finale, and offers fascinating comment on the Mozart 40th Symphony as Schubertian intertext, with several specific cross-references).

I agree - a tremendous performance . The virtuosity of Jacobs players is breathtaking and an excellent recording with so much instrumental detail. Thanks for the tip off .

[Opinionated Knowall]

Yes and indeed The plot is thickening . The Penguin Record review asserts that Brahms added extra bars in his edition. I’m just not patient enough to work out what those might be.

Have just listened to the Jacobs recordings (which surely must use the NSA?) with the B&H (Brahms) score, and there are no extra bars that I noticed. For all the undoubted flair of the Jacobs recording, I just can't stand the way he messes about with the tempo. Makes me feel seasick!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Have just listened to the Jacobs recordings (which surely must use the NSA?) with the B&H (Brahms) score, and there are no extra bars that I noticed. For all the undoubted flair of the Jacobs recording, I just can't stand the way he messes about with the tempo. Makes me feel seasick!

Thanks for doing that as you saved me the trouble. My source for the extra bars is a throwaway remark in the no5 review in the Penguin CD guide 2005/6. Brahms did do that a bit to Schubert - in one of the piano sonatas for example . But I can’t find anything on the net about it in regard to 5 . Sorry the Jacobs made you seasick!

[jayne lee wilson]

PPS Congrats to Jacobs and B’Rock band who play the opening pianissimo and the fiddles play a proper staccato downward run. Hats off ! Really beautifully done.

Slightly over narrow stereo mage though and very rhs skewed.

So glad you liked this one! Thanks, everyone, for the appreciative comments here....(I've just begun with his 9th last night.... astonishing again, I never heard it quite like that before; extraordinary artist whose players clearly love him
...Jacob's notes revelatory again too - do seek them out, even following the music while you read them...)
I'll try to to revisit COE/Harnoncourt soon....

But I don't detect any such balance anomalies with Jacobs and the Brocks off of CD or Q at 24/192; immediacy of sound but with fine soundstage depth and no hint of any right channel bias...

Screen-scrutiny an act of selfharm at this time of day, sorry....gotta go (back to the garden birds, in the sunshine...)... back later I hope....

[Ein Heldenleben]

Funnily enough the right hand sidedness was only an issue in the first movement but a small blemish on an otherwise immaculate recording. So much better than the live Gaiggs which is to my ears over reverberant and with a distinct “hole in the middle”.
Jacobs and engineers managed to achieve a genuine pianissimo at the start which seems beyond all the other recordings I’ve heard so far.

[jayne lee wilson]

Funnily enough the right hand sidedness was only an issue in the first movement but a small blemish on an otherwise immaculate recording. So much better than the live Gaiggs which is to my ears over reverberant and with a distinct “hole in the middle”.
Jacobs and engineers managed to achieve a genuine pianissimo at the start which seems beyond all the other recordings I’ve heard so far.

I love the live Gaigg as you know, but feel it should be taken for the live event that it is, coming together over a few festival days. See my review of the whole cycle on MWI, linked to way back on this thread at #7.
As for the sound, having lived with the set on CD and Q for some time, I had this to say back then:

"The sound is a constant thrill: such spaciousness, resolution and dynamic impact, especially in the bass registers which are both full and deep, sounding out the acoustic character. The contrast between the thinner orchestral textures, the sheer rhythmic energy and the climactic, starkly unflinching dynamic power……quite exceptional even to this hardened audiophile."

Certainly no exaggerated channel separation audible on the usual set-up here (especially given the lower strings' position at centre-to-left (as photos show), exhilaratingly punchy in the 3rd Symphony minuet)

[Barbirollians]

I love the live Gaigg as you know, but feel it should be taken for the live event that it is, coming together over a few festival days. See my review of the whole cycle on MWI, linked to way back on this thread at #7.
As for the sound, having lived with the set on CD and Q for some time, I had this to say back then:

"The sound is a constant thrill: such spaciousness, resolution and dynamic impact, especially in the bass registers which are both full and deep, sounding out the acoustic character. The contrast between the thinner orchestral textures, the sheer rhythmic energy and the climactic, starkly unflinching dynamic power……quite exceptional even to this hardened audiophile."

Certainly no exaggerated channel separation audible on the usual set-up here.

The Bohm remains fabulously played and conducted . I see a number of reviewers seem not to have enjoyed the scherzo in the Jacobs.

[jayne lee wilson]

The Bohm remains fabulously played and conducted . I see a number of reviewers seem not to have enjoyed the scherzo in the Jacobs.

I first fell in love with the 5th on the DG LP of the Berlin Phil, c/w No.8. One of my first LPs. Played them to pieces. At one time I really felt I would never want to hear them again. So thank goodness for The Revisionists! (Or Chamber Orchestras at least).

But wasn't the Vienna Bohm more highly favoured? Haven't looked into that recently....

[cloughie]

I first fell in love with the 5th on the DG LP of the Berlin Phil, c/w No.8. One of my first LPs. Played them to pieces. At one time I really felt I would never want to hear them again. So thank goodness for The Revisionists! (Or Chamber Orchestras at least).

But wasn't the Vienna Bohm more highly favoured? Haven't looked into that recently....

The Decca 50s recording? - Yes - lovely!

[Master Jacques]

Thanks for doing that as you saved me the trouble. My source for the extra bars is a throwaway remark in the no5 review in the Penguin CD guide 2005/6. Brahms did do that a bit to Schubert - in one of the piano sonatas for example . But I can’t find anything on the net about it in regard to 5 . Sorry the Jacobs made you seasick!

Listening also to the Jacobs this evening, like Opinionated Knowall I didn't notice anything peculiar about the Brahms edition.

As for the performance, it was all going so well ... until we reached the minuet's da capo. From there on in, I'm afraid Mr Jacobs needed at least a couple of visits to the headmaster's study, for tiresome mucking about - both there, and in the finale's repeat. Bad boy! It's as if he's bored, assumes we must be too, and gets prompted by an inner devil to do mischief to Schubert's perfect Mozartian classicism. Letting us know he's in complete control of his band (and having them pander to his every whim) sounds horribly stagy ... but then, in his singing days he used to infuriate me, by getting up to similar tricks in Handel da capos.

A pity, when the first two movements are pretty much perfect in mood and balance, genial, serene and yet alert to nuance. And I was pleased to hear him use Schubert's minims to the full in the opening theme, rather than crotchets or Gaiggian quavers, much to the music's benefit. Alas, I would not want to listen to what he does in the minuet da capo more than once. In fact, I'm sorry I had to listen to it even once.

[Petrushka]

The Decca 50s recording? - Yes - lovely!

There are actually four versions of the Schubert 5 from Karl Bohm:

Dresden Staatskapelle (1942)
VPO (1954)
BPO (1966)
VPO (1979)

I was very lucky to hear Bohm conduct the Schubert 5 with the LSO in 1978.

[jayne lee wilson]

There are actually four versions of the Schubert 5 from Karl Bohm:

Dresden Staatskapelle (1942)
VPO (1954)
BPO (1966)
VPO (1979)

I was very lucky to hear Bohm conduct the Schubert 5 with the LSO in 1978.

Excellent discography as ever Pet - trust you!
Do you have an especial favourite among them?

Did you ever get hold of that 4CD Andante Set of Bohm with the LSO? From the 1970s Salzburg Festival in the Brahms 2, Beethoven 7, Schumann 4, Mozart 28 & 35 etc....?
I enjoyed that, it was a very good sonic document of what seems to have been a warm relationship....

[jayne lee wilson]

Listening also to the Jacobs this evening, like Opinionated Knowall I didn't notice anything peculiar about the Brahms edition.

As for the performance, it was all going so well ... until we reached the minuet's da capo. From there on in, I'm afraid Mr Jacobs needed at least a couple of visits to the headmaster's study, for tiresome mucking about - both there, and in the finale's repeat. Bad boy! It's as if he's bored, assumes we must be too, and gets prompted by an inner devil to do mischief to Schubert's perfect Mozartian classicism. Letting us know he's in complete control of his band (and having them pander to his every whim) sounds horribly stagy ... but then, in his singing days he used to infuriate me, by getting up to similar tricks in Handel da capos.

A pity, when the first two movements are pretty much perfect in mood and balance, genial, serene and yet alert to nuance. And I was pleased to hear him use Schubert's minims to the full in the opening theme, rather than crotchets or Gaiggian quavers, much to the music's benefit. Alas, I would not want to listen to what he does in the minuet da capo more than once. In fact, I'm sorry I had to listen to it even once.

So glad you appreciate the restless creativity of one of the great Classic and Baroque Performance Artists of Our Time. The last thing René Jacobs would want is for you to be comforted or reassured. If you should ever dare the rollercoaster of his Schubert 9th, I'd take strong drink beforehand as, after a swiftly flowing intro followed by a surprisingly weighty, unhurried allegro, repeats aren't often literal with Maestro J. As why take them otherwise? Later, the Scherzo reprise is at a distinctly different tempo from the first statement.
Into the con moto - watch out! "The Catastrophe" as he describes it in his remarkable notes, is one to shock the complacency out of even this music's most jaded familiars.....
As for the finale - no spoilers now!

The brilliant Brocks produce brassy, punchy, sharp and shiny sonorities as they respond to his goadings... (but sudden soft tendernesses between...). I think Jacobs works with this group for similar reasons to Harnoncourt in his earlier recordings with the COE - that youthfulness and freshness, the excitement of discovery.

And it is those extensive notes, to all of the movements in all of the symphonies in his wonderful cycle, that give the lie to anyone doubting his profound understanding of Schubert, the structures, moods and meanings of the music, and and of Jacobs' Artistic Integrity in all that he does. Anyone who makes the time and effort to read them (and listen perhaps, along-with) will learn much, and never listen to Schubert quite the same way again.

(Incidentally - why would Schubert even want to reproduce Mozartian Classical perfection? Surely too great a prodigious creator himself to follow, where he might lead....)

[RichardB]

Some strong differences of opinion here on Jacobs... for my part I would say it's beautifully played but too micromanaged for my liking. This isn't to do with the question of varied repeats - and varying repeats may be just as appropriate in Mozart - but I prefer a less interventionist approach to conducting Schubert (I often have a problem with Harnoncourt's interpretations by the same token, although most of the time the distinctive sound of his ensemble is what particularly attracts me).

[Master Jacques]

Some strong differences of opinion here on Jacobs... for my part I would say it's beautifully played but too micromanaged for my liking. This isn't to do with the question of varied repeats - and varying repeats may be just as appropriate in Mozart - but I prefer a less interventionist approach to conducting Schubert (I often have a problem with Harnoncourt's interpretations by the same token, although most of the time the distinctive sound of his ensemble is what particularly attracts me).

"Interventionalist" is an ideal way of defining the Jacobs problem: the rits, acels and pauses sound self-consciously premeditated and rehearsed (as they have to be), so rather than promoting a sense of spontaneity - which more subtly varied repeats would do - they detract from it. For a recording designed - one assumes - for repeated listening, they are a fatal blemish.