This time, the masterpiece we share is Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64, conducted by the NHK Symphony Orchestra's Permanent Conductor, Otaka Tadaaki.

What is technical perfection if you don't have anything meaningful to say? It was something Pyotr Tchaikovsky mused about in 1888 when setting to work on what would become his famed Symphony No 5.

Sparks fly. The Fifth Symphony is marked by an unerring sense of pace, of just the ‘right’ tempo. In marked contrast to the Mravinsky school of Tchaikovsky interpretation, rubato is only applied where ...

Part of the reason must be Tchaikovsky’s own views on the symphony. His attitude to it swung violently from exhausted approval immediately after finishing it (“my best symphonic composition ...