Symphony No.5 in B flat major - Finale. Adagio - Allegro moderato [Stanisław Skrowaczewski]

The performance of the epic Fifth Symphony has a long-term structural command, but there is abundant textural detail along the way. In other words, this is a performance to reckoned with. It also does much credit to the recording team that it sounds better than ever in this reincarnation.

It is the two inner movements that impress most in Skrowaczewski's reading. As ever, he shows a keen appreciation of dynamic shadings, and in this regard as well as in the ambient sonorities, the recording serves him well. The scherzo is taken quickly, which is valid enough, but this does result in a few details of counterpoint being glossed over. For this is Bruckner's most overtly contrapuntal work, glorifying in the results his studies with his teacher Simon Sechter.

The slow movement is as eloquent as one could wish for, with a flowing pulse but equally a real sense of gravitas as the climaxes build. The outer movements too impress in their pacing, with the strongly characterised themes returning to make an impact at once expressive and structural. The Saarbrücken Orchestra may not have the pedigree of the Berlin Philharmonic (whose recording with Karajan on DG remains a benchmark), but play the two 'side by side' and you will be hard put to tell the ensembles apart.

The culminating passages of the symphony are hugely impressive, as a true peroration and summation. The results have much to commend them, though on the debit side the tension is perhaps allowed to sag just a little too much in the passage before the emphatic final bars. On the other hand, rarely has the balance between the brass instruments been so impressively communicated. There is no question that this is a noble and hugely rewarding performance of one of the greatest of all symphonies.