Anton Bagatov

Following his CPO recording with the Tapiola Sinfonietta of Anton Bruckner's Symphony in D minor, "Die Nullte," and the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Mario Venzago presents the Symphony No. 2 in C minor, this time with the Northern Sinfonia. Unlike some contemporary conductors who favor the original 1872 version of this symphony, Venzago performs the more familiar 1877 version, edited by William Carragan. This is the first of Bruckner's symphonies where he expanded the form to an hour duration, and the fertile ideas it contains are appropriate to the greater time frame. Yet this work has never been accepted by audiences in the way most of the later symphonies have, such as the Fourth, Seventh, and Ninth, and the music falters over too many starts and stops, indecisive development, and repetitions. Even so, there is much attractive material here, and Venzago brings it off with a light touch, having the orchestra play delicately and sweetly, almost as if this were a Mendelssohn symphony.

Anthony Paul Beke (born 20 July 1966), known professionally as Anton Du Beke, is a British ballroom and Latin dancer and television presenter, best known as a professional dancer and judge on the BBC One celebrity dancing show, Strictly Come Dancing, since the show began in 2004. His professional dance partner since 1997 has been Erin Boag. In 2009, he presented the UK version of Hole in the Wall, for the BBC, replacing Dale Winton after being a team captain in 2008. In November 2017, Du Beke released his debut studio album, From the Top, on Polydor Records. It reached number 21 on the UK Albums Chart.

Karajan reportedly felt so strongly about his recordings of the Second Viennese School that he agreed to finance them himself when DG balked at picking up the tab. These are great performances, to be sure. Indeed, there may be some others that are comparable, but none are superior. The Berg pieces never have sounded so decadently beautiful, nor the Webern so passionately intense, or the Schoenberg so, well, just plain listenable. The Berlin Philharmonic strings make their usual luscious sounds, but here the winds, brass, and even percussion rise to the occasion as well. And sonically these were always some of Karajan's best efforts. Essential, then, and a perfect way to get to know these three composers on a single disc.

For his project of recording the complete symphonies of Anton Bruckner on CPO, Mario Venzago has chosen to record each symphony with a different orchestra to re-create the sounds that Bruckner would have heard. Considering that Bruckner's experiences with orchestras spanned three decades, he would have witnessed growth of the orchestra's size and the introduction of new instruments, which clearly influenced his decisions when he composed and revised each work. Venzago performs the Symphony No. 8 in C minor with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, following the 1890 version and employing the same instrumentation and ensemble scale, as well as traditional practices that are documented in performances from that period. The result is an Eighth that sounds strikingly different from the other symphonies, quite far removed from the early Romantic orchestra he used in the First, and considerably expanded from the ensembles he would have expected for the Fourth or even the Seventh symphonies.

In his Éventail de musique française, Swiss oboist and composer Heinz Holliger traverses a broad selection of French works for oboe and piano in a multichromatic programme of early 20th century music. As Holliger states in his liner note, “the closeness of the oboe to the human voice inspired my idea of opening up the richly coloured fan of French music through the still far too little known collection of Vocalises-Études.” Contained in this wide-ranging recital are compositions by Ravel, Debussy, Milhaud, Saint-Saëns, Casadesus as well as Koechlin, Jolivet and Messiaen – Holliger cultivated a personal relationship with several of the composers. On piano returns Anton Kernjak, who appeared on Holliger’s 2014 recording Aschenmusik, while French harpist Alice Belugou comes in to play on André Jovilet’s Controversia pour hautbois et harpe. The richness of the 20th century oboe-repertoire is on full display throughout and finds Holliger in engaging dialogues with piano and harp. Éventail follows the release of Heinz Holliger’s multiple awards-winning large-scale opera Lunea from 2022.

Bruckner's early string quartet is more a composition exercise than a full-fledged work of art, but the quintet is something else entirely: a chamber music masterpiece to rank with the great symphonies in expressive intensity and sheer musical grandeur. Indeed, there are a few places where Bruckner seems to demand an almost orchestral volume of tone, and the slow movement has been successful performed (and recorded) by a full string orchestra. The Intermezzo is none other than an alternative scherzo for the quintet, composed because the original players at the premier found Bruckner's first thoughts too difficult. Well, the members of L'Archibudelli certainly don't find the music too difficult–you won't find better performances anywhere.

For this 2017 CSO-Resound release, Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra present Anton Bruckner's unfinished Symphony No. 9 in D minor in a monumental performance that impresses with its marmoreal weight, poignant lyricism, and brutal volatility. Not widely known for his few Bruckner recordings, Muti nonetheless delivers this symphony with the passion and sensitivity of an experienced Brucknerian, and possibly because he hasn't recorded it before, this live rendition of the Ninth seems like an attempt to make up for lost time. Muti's intensity and the orchestra's ferocious power combine to make a memorable reading that may remind listeners of performances by such greats as Günter Wand, Eugen Jochum, and particularly Carlo Maria Giulini, whose recordings of the Ninth are recognized benchmarks. While Muti only performs the three completed movements, and eschews any attempted reconstructions of the surviving Finale sketches, the performance has a genuine feeling of wholeness, and the Adagio particularly has the grandeur and pathos that make it feel like a convincing ending, albeit one that the composer did not intend.