Bruckner 4 Roth

After the tremendous success of the 7th Symphony, François-Xavier Roth and the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln continue their Bruckner complete symphonies cycle. The "Romantic", as Anton Bruckner himself entitles his 4th Symphony, was composed in 1874 in the midst of a period of personal defeat. And he immediately doubted his work, describing some parts as "unplayable" and finding "the instrumentation here and there overloaded and too turbulent". It was only years later, after numerous revisions, that the Fourth was premiered and Bruckner achieved the success he had longed for with the public of the time.

Loss, death, and redemption: Anton Bruckner went through a whirlwind of emotions during the two years in which he wrote the Seventh Symphony. The worst theater fire in history left hundreds dead practically next door to his Vienna apartment; Bruckner would have been one of the victims, had he not decided at the last minute to stay at home instead of going to the opera. He still feared that the flames might engulf his apartment and his manuscripts. As he wrote shortly thereafter to a friend: "The inexpressible misery of so many souls makes the blood run cold!" In the Seventh Symphony, Bruckner incorporated all those unsettling impressions, as well as the mourning over the death of Richard Wagner, his admired "ideal."

Bruckner's Third - a creative history that is unique even for the great Austrian romantic. No other of his symphonies has been revised, reshaped and reissued more often. Yet the first version from 1873, which François-Xavier Roth has chosen for this recording, bristles with boldness and the joy of experimentation. Here, the reminiscence of Beethoven's Ninth and the works of the dedicatee Richard Wagner is almost tangible.

The Radio Legacy is a compilation of the seven part Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the four box sets devoted to the orchestra s chief conductors Willem Mengelberg, Eduard van Beinum, Bernard Haitink and Riccardo Chailly, and also featuring more recent recordings with Mariss Jansons.