This situation begs for an alternative review. The first review here characterizes Michael Tilson Thomas' recording of Mahler's 5th as a " tepid run-through by an uninvolved conductor and a bored orchestra," yet he also criticizes the performance for excessive rubato and other micromanagement.

Well, you can't have it both ways. This is like criticizing a car for driving blandly, like a Toyota Camry, and at the same time darting all over the road like a 20-year-old Porsche. Whether rubato and fetishes about various detail are excessive or not is a matter of opinion (see later), but it's a fact that a conductor can't pull them off by being "uninvolved."

Like my predecessor, I'll "start with the engineering." Among other considerations, the San Francisco Symphony has commendably used Super Audio CD (SACD) encoding for its entire Mahler cycle. (This is despite the naysayers who dismiss SACD as an irrelevant commercial failure.) That they did so is symptomatic of the general commitment to audio quality in all these recordings.

I am a former recording engineer, and listened to this disc using a SACD player, whose output was fed to high-end stereo separates and studio monitor speakers. I also listened to the standard CD layer, ripped to an iPod Nano. Worst-case, i.e. on the Nano in stereo, the recording was almost as good as its best competitors. (I guess I should have said, there are many other great recordings of Mahler's 5th symphony.)

Best-case is SACD, where like others of its ilk this disc provides audio quality that is riveting. Handled with care, SACD comes closer to live music or a master tape, and the difference is not subtle. Here, there is depth, excellent orchestral balance, and an immersive sense of acoustical space. (And to any critical music lover who says SACD is too costly to bother with, decent players -- which also play DVDs -- are easily available for $200 or less.)

Now to the music. In the overall framework of a negative review, my predecessor actually cites many exceptional qualities of this performance, and there I agree with him. Tilson-Thomas is steeped in Mahler and as for the orchestra's response, they do what he wants on nearly a Chicago Symphony level. (They can't match the Berlin Philharmonic's virtuosity, but then what other orchestra possibly could except God's own?)

As a Bay Area native who rarely attends SFSO concerts, I was prepared to dismiss the orchestra's contribution as second-rate, and I was late to jump onto the Tilson-Thomas Mahler bandwagon. But when I did, his recordings confounded my prejudices -- and this one is no exception.

A conductor whose name is practically synonymous with Mahler -- especially the 5th -- is Leonard Bernstein. Lenny is a conductor you have to hear, but personally I prefer a more literal approach, without infuriating agogic distortions. Let Mahler make his own points, don't bother with special pleading.

Examples of more straightforward Mahler 5ths would be the (wonderful) recordings by Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado. Yet returning to Tilson-Thomas' disc after these reveals him to be "Bernstein lite," a conductor whose flexibility is noticeable but never annoying, always true to the score. Even in the famous Adagietto, which to my mind needs a clear-eyed "innocent" approach, MTT pulls it off.

As a Mahler fanatic, I would hate to live without 5ths by Abbado, Bruno Walter, and perhaps others. Bernstein's Vienna Philharmonic 5th is also one I wouldn't be without. When you're talking about music on this level, no one performance can be "best."

To my mind, MTT's 5th will delight both those who are new to this music and those who know it well. There's a sense of occasion and electricity about this 5th; in fact, I instinctively feel that it will still be remembered in 50 years, long after most others have been forgotten

The only demerit on this disc is the SACD price. To me, the audio quality is worth it, but this very same recording is available on iTunes for just $10.

... which I've just come home from hearing live in San Francisco. Thomas has insights into Mahler, into the Bach-influenced polyphony of Mahler, into the allusions Mahler makes continually to Haydn, into Mahler's complex 'religious' identity as a doubting Jew, that other conductors seem not to have, and he's able to communicate his insights to an orchestra that is a half-step short of world class. Let's go for broke and declare that MTT is the most interesting interpreter of Mahler on the loose today.

As for this recording, eh, what is there to say? The sound is inadequate. Big surprise. To squeeze Mahler's Fifth Symphony onto a digital CD and through a sound system of three to five speakers is way less possible than the proverbial camel through the needle's eye. It's like cramming a full five-course dinner at the best French provincial restaurant you know into a squeeze tube for consumption on an orbiting space station. If you've never 'liked' Mahler much, on the basis of recordings, get yourself to a live performance - any live performance - as soon as possible. If it's Michael Tilson Thomas conducting, so much the better!

My first conscious exposure to the possibility that Mahler could be played as opera was probably the stereo era recording of the 2nd symphony, committed to disc by Stokowski leading the LSO. From first note to last the whole grand thing simply rang out - clarion. Bel canto.

I recalled that Stokowski revelation while listening to this MTT reading of the Mahler Fifth.

Some touchstones for recorded comparisons: I have long treasured Mahler 5th Symphonies by the likes of: (1) Wyn Morris (Symphonica of London), (2) Rudolf Barshai (Neue Junge Deutsche Philharmonie-coupled with an equally stunning Tenth Symphony), (3) Sir John Barbirolli (New Phlharmonia), (4) Herbert von Karajan (BerlinPO), (5) Pierre Boulez (ViennaPO - another welcome surprise), (6) Michael Gielen (SWRSO), (7) Gary Bertini (CologneRSO), (8) Lorin Maazel (ViennaPO), and (9) Giuseppe Sinopoli (Philharmonia).

Yes, some famous and some newer names are missing so far from my open-ended fav list. I just haven't warmed to these yet. If I have even heard some of them.

Among the prior recordings, the MTT reading comes nearest - though not all that near in the end - to the Sinopoli reading. Both charmed and surprised me by treating this often gnarly-seeming symphony as Bel Canto Song. The greatest contrast is with Barshai, Gielen, and Bertini who in different ways engage more severely with the immense (in all senses of the word) polyphony of this work. Having such a viable range of interpretations is fascinating in itself, but efforts to find new things in a familiar piece of music can be failures, irritating, unconvincing on repeated plays.

Not so this MTT Mahler Fifth. It seems to be getting faint praise from many listeners. Not so from me.

The first trumpet notes put a hearer on notice that this will all be Bel Canto. Yes Lucia goes mad in the last act, kills her politically-driven husband, and Enrico knifes himself after a glorious farewell aria upon hearing that Lucia is dead as the cortege bears her tragically young body forth into the countryside of Scotland by way of Italy. But nothing ceases to be lyrical just because it is dramatic, or even melodramatic. Many great moments of symphonic polyphony achieve such flowing and flexible ensemble that, again, one tends to forget JS Bach, thinking of all the great opera trios, quartets, and quintets. There is nothing in MTT"s performance that is not still genuine Mahler, and yet Bellini and Donizetti stand applauding as it were, vigorously in the wings.

The third movement made famous by Visconti's film use of it is essentially song, too. The breathing phrases, glinted and inflected with rubato, reminds us of those vulnerable dimensions of real human hearts, instead of being inflated as large (or as dramatically) as possible. The old saw about Clemens Krauss' approach to conducting Richard Strauss (Epic but bloated) has no place here.

The Finale is our emergence back into the kaleidoscopic bright sunshine and bustle of the wide world. It shows quite a definite sense of humor. SACD booklet annotator Michael Steinberg puts the well-being of the Finale in context, opining that Mahler is willing to end this symphony with what he terms, a shout of laughter. By the end, I am willing to agree that this symphony is bursting with more sunshine and affirmation of life than I have typically wanted to hear in my fav versions. I am not exactly willing to throw all the other, darker readings out, but I can welcome this more positive view, too.

Let me wrap up by discussing sound. I have heard this performance in superaudio surround sound. My system seems decent enough, with a Sony SACD player pushing signal out to five Definitive Tech floor speakers, through a B&K preamp and Bryston power amps. That is, I think I have had a decent chance to evaluate the audio without my system unduly getting in the way.

If you have been attending live concerts lately in the re-balanced acoustics of Davies Hall in SF, you will surely recognize the truth of the recording the moment you hear it in all channels. So far as I can tell, the engineers have used a minimalist mike set-up in all the MTT Mahler recordings to date. They set the rig and let it go. No spotlight miking. No artificial editing to re-balance instrumental sections or solos. What you hear is consistent right through the performance, despite a series of live concerts being edited together to comprise the SACD master.

The dynamic range is typically greater than ordinary 16-bit CD. Loud to soft simply expands in dimension via SACD, with tangible gains in full frequency clarity, warmth, and resonating air around the music that mostly tends to enhance tonal depth while locating sound even more vividly in the recorded venue. I can indeed think of SACD's which I hear as falling off the charts on the pppppp ends of the spectrum - Rostropovich's Shostakovich Eleventh with the LSO in SACD, and Zander's nearly sonically invisible posthorn soloist in his reading of the Mahler Third, do come to mind. But this MTT outing is not marred by this sort of SACD engineering failure.

If you want the contrasting approach to this symphony that emphasizes polyphony and counterpoint textures, with plenty of fire and urgent impetus, you could hardly do better than the Rudolf Barshai 2-disc set on Brilliance, with that conductor leading the astounding Junge Deutsch Philharmonie in Barshai's completion of the Tenth Symphony, too. But in its own ways, according to its own sung sense, this MTT+SFSO approach breathes and dances and exemplifies a high level of operatic ensemble; if the Fifth has heretofore sounded a bit too lugubrious or dark to you, this may become one of your favs. Otherwise, like a live concert reading of the Bruckner Fifth wherein Blomstedt and SFSO shed entirely Schubertian light on that gnarly score, this performance is content to stake out its own interpretive territory.

I get the sense listening to this recording that while MTT might be fully in it and trying to make a statement, that the orchestra really is not. They never sound fully commited. The playing is still very good, but it lacks a certain amount of passion. The sound is very good, as expected here. I think though that this was the start of where MTT started putting too much of himself in and leaving Mahler behind. This is in full effect in the 8th. I still prefer the Barshai version with the Young German Philharmonic. Both conducter and orchestra sound fully committed there. While this MTT-SFS recording is good, it does not move to the top of the list for me.

I'll be blunt: This recording is marvelous!

I find it odd to read so many almost disparaging reviews calling this a flat and emotionless performance. Some reviews even cite far inferior recordings as a basis for comparison.

There are a number of fine recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic, including those of Karajan, Abbado, and Haitink (my personal favorite, though the recorded sound is a bit bright). To me, however, Berlin's playing has never been what I would call precise, and Simon Rattle is simply out of his league. His recording of the 5th is completely devoid of imagination, and certainly not worthy of being compared to first tier recordings.

Solti's earlier recording with the CSO is almost embarrassing, and even the later recording's lack of precision is only balanced out by the sheer power and drive of the brass section.

What MTT achieves in this recording is basically a conglomeration of what is good in every other recording while simulateously removing the undesirable qualities. Rhythm is clear, textures are well defined, the recorded sound is good. Overall though, the recorded sound does not equal that of others in this series, particularly the Third.

My one criticism might be that the architecture of the piece seems a little too thought out, perhaps too studied. But even this isn't to the point where it lacks imagination, but only a certain amount of spontenaity.

The first movement is not as sinister as some, but makes up for it in precision and dark brass sound. The second movement is not as driven as perhaps it could be, but less drive here equals clearer textures. The third movement dances nicely, but never quite makes it to the extremes of contrast. The fourth flows beautifully, never lingers over itself, but also never matches the flowing string playing of Berlin with Karajan or Abbado. Like the second movement, the fifth movement also never really takes off, but it never becomes the tangled jumble that traps even the best interpretations.

In short, this recording has earned 5 stars from its own merits, and certainly deserves the highest consideration.