Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E minor Op. 64; Capriccio Italien Op. 45 -
The Cleveland Orchestra; George Szell, conductor
Classical | 1 CD | EAC Rip | 308 Mb | FLAC+LOG+M3U+Cue | Full scans | 2 RS links
Publisher: Sony Classical
George Szell wasn't known for his Tchaikovsky, and he didn't record all that much of him. There's a very good Fourth Symphony on Decca (with the LSO), and of course he played the major concertos when necessary, but this release constitutes his outstanding contribution to the Russian composer's discography. There's certainly value in scarcity, for this Fifth Symphony is one of the great ones: magnificently played (of course), urgent and dynamic in the first movement, passionate but always flowing in the second, elegant in the waltz, and triumphant but never needlessly bombastic in the finale. Listeners who view Szell as a "strictly by the score" interpreter, largely on account of his treatment of tempo, will be surprised to hear an added cymbal crash in the finale's coda. It's all good, clean fun.
The same holds true for the Capriccio, a bubbly performance given additional brilliance thanks to Szell's willingness to let the trumpets strut their stuff (also true in the symphony) and to the orchestra's hair-trigger rhythmic precision. Szell may not have let his hair down often, but there's a difference between discipline and inhibition. His best performances, as here, offer plenty of the former with no trace of the latter. The sonics show their age in a high level of hiss and a certain want of timbral richness, but better this than a remastering that chops off the treble and robs the music of its natural brilliance. That, thank God, you can still hear in abundance. This is a release that Szell fans will surely want to acquire, assuming of course that you don't already own one of its prior incarnations.
–David Hurwitz
Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008
EAC extraction logfile from 12. October 2009, 7:46
George Szell / Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5; Capriccio Italian
Used drive : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GSA-4167B Adapter: 3 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : No
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : No
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : No
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 320 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\FLAC\FLAC.EXE
Additional command line options : -6 -V -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "COMMENT=%e" %s -o %d
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 14:38.05 | 0 | 65854
2 | 14:38.05 | 13:08.07 | 65855 | 124961
3 | 27:46.12 | 6:03.63 | 124962 | 152249
4 | 33:50.00 | 11:57.32 | 152250 | 206056
5 | 45:47.32 | 14:46.33 | 206057 | 272539
Range status and errors
Selected range
Filename L:\My Documents\My Music\Cajkovski\Symphonies\Symphony No. 5 - Szell\George Szell - Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5; Capriccio Italian.wav
Peak level 99.2 %
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 194060F7
Copy CRC 194060F7
Copy OK
No errors occurred
End of status report
EAC extraction logfile from 12. October 2009, 7:46
George Szell / Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5; Capriccio Italian
Used drive : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GSA-4167B Adapter: 3 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : No
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : No
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : No
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 320 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\FLAC\FLAC.EXE
Additional command line options : -6 -V -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "COMMENT=%e" %s -o %d
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 14:38.05 | 0 | 65854
2 | 14:38.05 | 13:08.07 | 65855 | 124961
3 | 27:46.12 | 6:03.63 | 124962 | 152249
4 | 33:50.00 | 11:57.32 | 152250 | 206056
5 | 45:47.32 | 14:46.33 | 206057 | 272539
Range status and errors
Selected range
Filename L:\My Documents\My Music\Cajkovski\Symphonies\Symphony No. 5 - Szell\George Szell - Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5; Capriccio Italian.wav
Peak level 99.2 %
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 194060F7
Copy CRC 194060F7
Copy OK
No errors occurred
End of status report