Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Hartmut Haenchen
Pentatone PTC 5186004 (recorded March 2001 in concert; this SACD release 2002)
(16bit/44.1kHz flac and scans)
Recording venue: Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
Recording engineer and Producer: Erdo Groot
As the Mahler symphonies seem to be flavour of the month on the chatbox, I thought that I would add a perhaps less well-known recording of Symphony No.5. This was one of the first 'original' recordings on the Pentatone label. At the time they were mainly reissuing Philips' surround sound recordings on SACD - the first time those recordings were issued with surround sound rather than as 2-channel.
Of course, this recording is also issued as SACD and the sound is spectacular in the Concertgebouw. Unfortunately, I do not have the means to rip the SACD layer but the CD (2-channel) layer still sounds very good.
It would be idle to pretend that the Netherlands Philharmonic of the time was the equal of the Concertgebouw Orchestra but the playing is still excellent and Haenchen offers an exciting and lithe performance with none of the dawdling in the Adagietto frequently experienced in more famous recordings.