I am not interested in the number of recordings out there in the market place of Mahler’s 5th. It seems as though this particular recording might have a special place among all the others…
Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 (with its unforgettable Adagietto) today needs no introduction. Except to point out that the composer himself led its premiere some 113 years ago, conducting the Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne.
For this recording, the modern-day players comprising the very same ensemble are led by the city’s newly appointed General Music Director, François-Xavier Roth, and this places this version of the recording in a class of its own.
Here is Sir Simon Rattle, leading the Berlin Philharmonic in the Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony number 5:
