Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 / Francesca da Rimini

"Energy and excitement as Dudamel's young players take on Tchaikovsky. After an erratic start to his recordings for DG, Gustavo Dudamel and his supercharged orchestra seem to mature by leaps with every release. They throw themselves into the drama of this great symphony with everything they have - if, for me, they miss the refinement of a Pletnev, the sense of pain all the more cutting for the sufferer's self-restraint, that is patently not what Dudamel is all about."
Editor's Choice - Gramophone April 2009

"As usual, the forces wielded in this live recording from Caracas approach the gargantuan: they include 17 trumpets, 15 trombones and a mere 96 strings. And again the playing quality is exceptional. Brass shining like gold; velvet, purring double-basses; gambolling woodwinds; killer percussion; violinists with 20 fingers, never afraid whatever the speed." The Times, 6th February 2009 ****

"The playing packs a passionate punch, the aching pangs of the first movement delivered with palpable anguish, the outbursts charged with hot-blooded fury. Dudamel's pacing of the andante slow movement might tax any solo horn-player's reservoir of breath, but the youngster allotted the part here takes it mellifluously in his stride." The Telegraph, 18th February 2009

"Though Gustavo Dudamel's achievements with his remarkable young Venezuelans may be one of the musical wonders of our time, their charisma seems to work far better live than on disc. The collection released last year was a wonderful memento of the Simón Bolívar's performances of the same pieces in concert, but their earlier recording of Mahler and Beethoven symphonies with Dudamel had been much less convincing. Though this latest Tchaikovsky release has moments of huge excitement, it doesn't begin to compete with the finest accounts of the Fifth Symphony already available. Predictably, perhaps, it's the finale of the symphony that shows Dudamel and his orchestra at their best, when they generate tremendous intensity; but until then it moves in fits and starts. The orchestral fantasy Francesca da Rimini fares no better, with the slower music under-characterised and other sections too brassily assertive. Dudamel's army of fans will get over it, of course, but he's a more satisfying interpreter than he allows himself to be here." The Guardian, 6th March 2009 ***