Though Soviet conductor Evgeny Svetlanov was well known for the range of his repertoire -- he performed not only the standard Russian fare from Glinka through Tchaikovsky to Scriabin but also such Western composers as Brahms, Mahler, and Elgar -- he was not much known for his Shostakovich.

Svetlanov left studio recordings of only the Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra and a handful of live recordings of the First, Seventh, Eighth, and Fifteenth with various orchestras.

This performance of the Fifth recorded live at the 1978 Edinburgh Festival with the London Symphony Orchestra released on BBC Music is the only available recording of his approach to this cornerstone work of Soviet symphonism -- and it's a honey.

Svetlanov has total control over every aspect of the music and the musicians from the least inflection to the greatest tutti.

But more than anything else, his interpretation is about power and the application of power.

With the super virtuoso London musicians splendidly rising to his challenge, Svetlanov leads a performance of terrific concentration and tremendous intensity that transcends the music's occasional blinding banalities and sentimental ironies to achieve truly classic status.

Svetlanov knows how to sculpt the score so that its shape emerges in waves of sound rising to an ecstatic climax that is at once surprising and inevitable.

Try just the Largo -- if Svetlanov's slowly tightening circles leading inexorably to the isolated terror of the climax doesn't leave you gasping, perhaps you should see a doctor.

As a bonus, BBC Music includes Svetlanov's overwhelming 1968 recording of Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra, a performance of such passionate force that it seems to shatter and break at the climax.

In both cases, the BBC's stereo sound, though obviously live, is sharp, clean, and vivid.