Earlier this year, Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic kicked off their Mahler cycle for Pentatone with the composer’s modestly-scored Fourth Symphony. So extraordinary however is that account that you could say the cycle has still started with a bang.  But if you think the Czech’s Fourth is good, wait till you hear this. I can sum it up in three letters: O.M.G. (Of course, I went back to listen to some of my other fave Mahler Fifths – Boulez, Gielen, Bernstein with the Vienna Philharmonic – but, but…)

Czech Philharmonic Mahler

Purely by coincidence, I’d had the Supraphon Czech Philharmonic Mahler cycle with Vaclav Neumann from the late 70s and early 80s on almost continuous play in the car before the Bychkov landed in my Google Drive folder for review. Forty years later it’s a very different orchestra; but one that still possesses the same fierce resolution, the same bravura, the same fearlessness.

Mahler’s Fifth is notable for a number of reasons. It’s the first of his symphonies not to rely on sung texts. Its structure – Part 1 (two movements): darkness; Part 2 (the...