Jurowski keeps a clear head and focuses bright sonorities without ever letting the Russian players harden their tone. In the Symphony his intensive approach to detail is always evident, especially in the fierce or sarcastic accents which cut across even the work's more smoothly epic moments. I've never heard the three snapping trumpets in the Scherzo or the nagging repeated notes in the finale more incisively handled.

His intensive approach to detail is always evident

….Jurowski offers something fresh, exposing layer upon layer of orchestral colour, unravelling this cryptic symphony easefully but purposefully…..The sound balances and stage depth effects here are very good, with
woodblock and piano in sharp focus in the Symphony.

Taken at a hard lick, as it too often is, Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony can be seen as a coarse wartime brute. Vladimir Jurowski, working with the superb Russian National Orchestra, knows better. He shapes with thoughtfulness and feeling; speeds are controlled….A magnificent recording; and the neglected Ode to the End of the War makes a tasty extra.