Mahler furioso

Complete Mahler cycles, such a rarity a few decades ago,come around with such frequency now that you have to ask yourself what can yet another one give us that's new. It's certainly fairly unknown territory for Valery Gergiev who's in his first full season as Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.He's reached the half way point in what's been a pretty mixed bag of performances starting with the 3rd way back in September.The thunderous brass fanfare at the beginning of the first movement of the 5th highlighted both the strength and weakness of a perfomance which was strong on excitement but short on subtlety and finesse. Huge brass and over exaggerated crescendi were features of the opening movement .The LSO's strings, in contrast seemed somewhat shrunken and subdued in the face of the overbearing brass.The second movement…