Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38319 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-05-06
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Classical, Color, DVD, Widescreen, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 194 minutes

Amazon.com
You can hear and see this excellent performance of Mahler's militant, stormy and sometimes ethereal Symphony No. 5 in standard DVD (on disc 1 of the set) or hear it in a variety of digital audio formats. A bonus DVD-Audio disc (without visuals) offers a choice of standard stereo or two varieties of surround sound. The surround sound is even richer and more precise than the standard DVD, and this matters with Mahler's colorful and finely detailed orchestration. But the video is useful for conveying Simon Rattle's expressive gestures, his fine control of the Berlin Philharmonic, and its precise playing in this his first performance as the orchestra's music director.

Ades's Asyla (the plural of "Asylum," used in both its meanings, as a place of refuge and a scene of madness) is available only in the video format, which is sonically quite good and visually striking. It is energetic music, with a lot of percussion, including one piece that looks like a tomato juice can, and one movement that annotator Andrew Porter describes as "a sort of Rite of Spring cum disco." A video interview of Rattle is a fine bonus. --Joe McLellan

Customer Reviews

beautifully played
This performance of the Mahler 5th, like that of Barenboim's with the Chicago Symphony, is a very fine middle of the road interpretation in high quality sound, perhaps a bit more imaginative in places, but not radically different. The biggest difference I hear is between the basic sound of the two ensembles. Compared to Chicago, the Berlin Phil has a noticably sweeter sound, especially in the strings. In the adagietto movement for strings and harp, this difference becomes quite apparent. Furthermore, the brass does not stand out in the mix, as it does with Chicago, but instead, is more blended in with the rest of the orchestra. Take your choice, or get both.

Buy it!
This is a stunning recording, and it certainly makes one wish that more Mahler symphonies would appear on DVD. Rattle uses a huge orchestra, and follows Mahler's own instruction to let the solo horn player play in front of the orchestra in the third movement. This adds a wonderful element to the performance because one can see more of the solo and the soloist, which is beautifully played.

Brilliant Mahler Five; The Jury's Still Out on Adès
More and more I'm coming to feel that the way I want my Mahler is via DVD. There is something about seeing, as well as hearing, the orchestra and the conductor that conduces to a more satisfying experience. I've reviewed - glowingly - several Mahler DVD performances: the Ninth (glorious!), Fifth (celebratory), and the 'Resurrection' (No. 2), all conducted by one of my favorite conductors, Claudio Abbado. Here we have direct competition with the Abbado Fifth by his successor with the Berlin Philharmonic, Sir Simon Rattle. Well, as I see it, you can't go wrong with either version. This Fifth is really special. And, by the way, it is available separately on regular CD, too. This DVD comes with a separate DVD-A that contains the audio only of the symphony; I can't compare the sound of the DVD-A with the CD because I've not heard the CD, but the sound on the DVD-A is pretty spectacular, if you should want to go that route. This was Rattle's inaugural 2002 concert with the BPO after assuming Abbado's mantle, and the sense of occasion is palpable.

A few high points: Principal horn Stefan Dohr comes to the front of the orchestra for his gorgeously played solos in the Scherzo. The Berlin Philharmonic play like gods and, mirabile dictu, I see them smiling much of the time! That's got to be at least partly a reaction to Rattle's irresistible enthusiasm. Those Berlin strings are unbeatable (except, some would say, by the Vienna Philharmonic) in, for instance, the pizzicati in the Scherzo and, even more impressive, in the Adagietto, which is certainly a love song in this performance. And it leads right up to a joyful finale. Yes, there is the dark undercurrent present, too, but as Rattle says of Mahler's position in this matter, 'love and counterpoint will remedy anything.'

The curtain raiser in this concert was 'Asyla' by the aging British Wunderkind, Thomas Adès. I will say straight off that I'm not a big fan of Mr Adès's music. While acknowledging his talent, I haven't found much of his to my own taste. Still, 'Asyla' is a brilliant tour de force of orchestration if nothing else, although as Martin Anderson comments in a review I'd read some months ago, it seems to be running in place throughout its twenty-minute length.

The bottom line: this is a magnificent Mahler Fifth, different from Abbado's in that it has more chiaroscuro, and equally valid. The extras include an interview of Rattle by Nicholas Kenyon. Sound is PCM Stereo, DTS 5.1 or Dolby Digital 5.1, and it is quite lifelike. One notices, momentarily, that when the camera is in the orchestra looking towards the conductor the audio perspective reverses so that first violins seem to be on the right, seconds on the left. Odd, even understandable, and not too bothersome.

Scott Morrison