Bruckner Symphony No. 4gergiev

To this day, Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor continues to be the least frequently performed of all his symphonies. Not as revolutionary as the first, or as brutally reckless as the third, Bruckner’s core ambition with his Second is a constant testing, exploration, and expansion of the possibilities of the symphony. Conductor Marek Janowski and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande succeed in doing justice to the work, and the recording is clear proof of Janowski’s brilliance when it comes to conducting Bruckner. In reviewing the recording, Gramophone declared: “There’s more than a touch of the great Eugen Jochum in Janowski’s approach.”

Suddenly, and not before time, the Sixth Symphony of Bruckner is riding high. And deservedly so since it is the tersest of his mature symphonies and the most openly exultant. Unlike the superficially more alluring Fourth, it needs a real musician to direct it, no mere master of orchestral ceremonies. What's more, it needs a Brucknerian with a passion for musical logic, a musical realist rather than a musical romantic. As such it is a work better suited to a Rosbaud, a Klemperer, or a Wand rather than someone like Jochum or Furtwangler however inspirational they may be at certain critical moments in the score.

Bruckner did not assign a number to this Symphony that has been ascribed the number 0 "Die Nullte". He wrote it after his Symphony No. 1 in C minor (1866) and his sketches of an aborted Symphony (also 1869) in Bb major. The melodic structure, although familiar to modern listeners, was such a radical departure from mainstream Romantic Era Symphonies that it lead to criticism from the conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Felix Otto Dessoff. Consequently Bruckner suffered a crisis in confidence, and this piece, (amongst others) was never performed in his lifetime.

The 2015 Munich concert year began at the end of January with two highlights: two performances of Bruckner's Sixth Sympho ny with Mariss Jansons conducting the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The live recording, previously reserved exclusively for subscribers to the orchestra, is now being released on CD by BR-KLASSIK - an outstanding interpretation of one of the most important compositions in the Late Romantic symphonic repertoire. For a long time, Anton Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony (along with his Second) was regarded as something of a ‘poor relation’ in his immense symphonic oeuvre, even though the composer himself had moodily referred to it as his "boldest".

The latest high quality recording of the profound "Bull 3" recorded with LGO in 1963, for the 10th anniversary of Sanderling's death! A masterful performance full of the German spirit of yesteryear. New reissue from the original ETERNA analog tape. World's first SACD release! Mastered only in the analog domain and directly converted to DSD! The 11th SACD hybridization of the latest reissue project of ETERNA's original analog tapes in Japan, the latest SACD release of Kurt Sanderling's (1912.9.19-2011.9.18) early session recording of Bruckner's Symphony No. 3, which was made 10 years after his death. This piece was a specialty of Sanderling's, which he conducted many times during his life, and several later live recordings of the piece are available in addition to this recording.

Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in E major is among the most popular of his works, and there is no dearth of recordings of this masterpiece, with reissues and new releases appearing every few months. Kent Nagano and the Bavarian State Orchestra have approached it with an apparent lightness of feeling and textural transparency that are essential to the bright sound of the outer movements, and they deliver the music with accuracy and appealing expression.

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.

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.

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.