Anton Bruckner
241 products
Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 - Premiere Recording Of Finale Completed By Nors S. Josephson
Bruckner: Pange Lingua & Motets (Live)
Bruckner: Symphonie No. 1
BRUCKNER Symphony No. 1 (1866 vers) • Philipp von Steinaecker, cond; Musica Saeculorum • FRA BERNARDO 1310322 (47:57) Live: Musik Meran
The program notes to this recording state that the 60-person Musica Saeculorum opted to record Bruckner’s Symphony No. 1 in its original 1866 edition on period instruments in an effort “to identify any possible connection to Schubert and the early Romantics.” Harmonically, of course, Bruckner is worlds removed from Schubert and his contemporaries. But the use of period instruments does offer Bruckner a slightly more subdued timbral palette than most listeners are accustomed to in his music. The strings are somewhat darker, the brass a bit more veiled. Whether because of instrumentation, recording engineering, or conducting choices, though, I find that the strings have a tendency to overbalance the other instruments in tutti sections, occasionally making melodic material difficult to discern. This is my primary criticism of this disc. Bruckner at his most forceful can and should be overwhelming, but the counterpoint should always be clear; his tuttis mark the apotheoses of thematic material. In this recording, these passages tend to be rather murky and undifferentiated.
This criticism aside, Philipp von Steinaecker demonstrates a keen understanding of Bruckner’s aesthetic. The dotted rhythms of the first movement’s main theme are crisp and energetic, as are the horn’s responses. Von Steinaecker lingers appropriately on Bruckner’s extended passages of dominant harmony, building harmonic tension through strategic ritards in preparation for majestic statements in the brass. Even within string passages, though, figuration occasionally overshadows melody, as in the contrapuntal development of the first theme in the violins against sextuplet scales in the lower strings or the recapitulation of the second theme in the basses against eighth-note figuration in the upper strings. The modulatory passages that follow, however, are forceful and stern, and the rush to the final bars is quite exciting, though I would have liked the thematic material in the winds to be clearer.
Von Steinaecker’s is one of the more expansive readings of the symphony’s second movement, over a minute longer than Jochum’s. I find the expansiveness effective; the chromatic introduction becomes nebulous enough to make the eventual arrival of stable tonality a genuine relief. In the soaring passages that follow, though, minimal differentiation is made between melody and accompaniment. Von Steinaecker is sensitive to the ebb and flow of harmonic tension, but the melodic contours are lost throughout much of the movement.
The third movement is perhaps the most successful, with strong, almost violent accents and sharp contrasts in dynamics. At nearly a minute shorter than Jochum’s performance and 90 seconds briefer than Barenboim’s, it is among the more energetic recordings of this movement. I only wish that the brass dissonances toward the end received more weight. And the trio has the same problems with balance as the previous two movements: the motivic fourths in the horn are quite difficult to hear.
The fourth movement has almost no balance issues, although Bruckner’s orchestration is not particularly different in this movement than in the others. The opening pages are powerful and imposing, though I would have liked von Steinaecker to take an even greater ritard over the extended dominant harmonies that precede the second statement of the first theme. The second theme, stated in the violins with offbeat accents in the basses, is appropriately rustic. Likewise, von Steinaecker builds tension admirably before Bruckner’s characteristic pauses. The development maintains a consistent sense of direction. Von Steinaecker is particularly effective in his treatment of Bruckner’s obsessively-repeated scale fragments in the strings, which he leads gradually from background to foreground against the melodic material in the horns. The ending is triumphant and grand, though a broader ritard before the final cadence would have made it more so.
Because of the balance issues mentioned above, I cannot give this recording a wholehearted recommendation, but von Steinaecker’s conception of the piece is intelligent and appealing. The sound is generally crisp and live, with very slight tape hiss apparent at the beginnings and ends of tracks.
FANFARE: Myron Silberstein
Bruckner: Symphonie 8 / Ballot, Upper Austrian Youth Orchestra
-- Richard Lehnert, Stereophile
It is perhaps no coincidence that the duration of this performance runs to what will seem to many an extreme and etiolated 104 minutes. That would be unprecedented, were it not for the fact that the timings overall and for individual movements match almost exactly those of the recording made by Sergiu Celibidache with the Munich Philharmonic for EMI in 1993. I do not know if Celibidache was in any sense Rémy Ballot’s mentor, but Ballot certainly studied briefly under him in Paris in the 1990s and this recording suggests that he imbibed the precepts of that eccentric maestro.
Comparisons with other recordings are to some degree otiose, insofar as no other recording apart from Celibidache’s begins to approach the leisureliness of this one but the other recordings this most resembles include the two by Karajan, especially the earlier one from 1957, Giulini’s two recordings from 1984 with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic respectively, and Gunter Wand, also with the BPO in 2001. These are all massive, vertical interpretations aspiring to transcendence, as opposed to the fleeter, nimbler versions by such as Tennstedt, R?gner and even Furtwängler, using his own adaptation of the 1892 Haas edition.
Obviously the edition chosen has an impact on timings, too. Both Ballot and Celibidache employ the 1890 Nowak version yet even the slowest of the other recordings that use this same score is still over a quarter of an hour faster then theirs, while many are as much as half an hour shorter. Even those recordings which use either the most complete Nowak edition of the original 1887 score, or the somewhat longer edition of the 1890 score produced by Robert Haas, or even the elaborated version as recorded by Schaller, do not begin to approach Ballot for expansiveness. Nor is comparison with many excellent historical recordings, such as those by Knappertsbusch, very valid, as they invariably used the revised and heavily cut first performance version of 1892.
If this preamble sounds like a critical caveat to the consumer against trying this recording, I hasten to add that I am merely trying to establish its uniqueness and am in no sense implying that excuses have to be found for Ballot’s tempi - although a predisposition on the part of the listener to tolerate them would be an advantage. Ballot carries off his vision of this symphony triumphantly; the weight and dignity of this monumental account enhance my conviction that it is the greatest Romantic symphony in the canon.
Of the twenty or so different recordings with which I am familiar, five of the best are with the BPO and three with the VPO, suggesting that the presence of a first tier orchestra steeped in Brucknerian tradition is of paramount importance – yet the virtuosity of the Upper Austria Youth Orchestra rides a coach and horses through that notion. Their talent and technical prowess are phenomenal, and there are certainly no more blips or minor flubs than one would expect to hear in any live performance by a first rate professional band. The notes tell us that 130 musicians with an average age of seventeen took part in this performance, although only 96 are named; presumably there were more guest instrumentalists than are credited and they make a magnificent sound. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that despite their prowess, they cannot quite emulate the security of attack or the silky sheen that Karajan’s orchestras achieve, and despite the emphasis conductor Ballot’s places in the notes upon the importance of varying dynamics, nor is their ability to shade them quite so subtly responsive.
This performance took place in the same location almost a year to the day after the Third Symphony was recorded live and subsequently released on Gramola label; I reviewed it here very favourably. The Ninth will follow later this year and the Sixth in 2016. The resonant acoustic of the Stiftsbasilika favours and even demands slower speeds if the articulation of faster passages is not be obscured by the reverberation. By all accounts, the recording engineers are better able to sift and clarify the sound than human ears listening live can process it; certainly there is no “sonic mush” here to trouble the listener. Inevitably, given the live location, this recording cannot match the transparency Karajan achieves in the studio but the sound remains rich and round, if slightly veiled. Coughing is minimal and there is no recurrence of the hum from the lighting which mildly marred the recording of the Third last year.
In many ways, the sum of this performance is greater than its parts: it clearly greatly impressed those present and remains mightily impressive as a recording per se and as a memento of what was evidently a great event, even if at individual points other interpreters are more effective – or simply different. Thus in the mighty, brooding opening, Karajan, Giulini and Furtwängler generate more tension, while Tennstedt or Maazel are more urgent and imploring, whereas Ballot tends to slow down marginally before the big moments such as the climaxes to the brass crescendos in order to emphasise and underline their impact. The Totenuhr, too, is especially chilling, dwindling spectrally into nothingness, its graduated dynamic beautifully judged.
Despite its length, there is absolutely no sense of dragging in the Scherzo and indeed some of the additional time is accounted for by Ballot sharing Thielemann’s attachment to making the pauses count, allowing the reverberation to fade and an expectant silence to prevail. The ostinato of falling fifths is superbly articulated. The distension of the Adagio represents the most daring of the risks Ballot takes with this music and but the results are heavenly. It is true that sometimes the young string-players do not “bow through” their phrases sufficiently to emulate the richness of tone their senior counterparts generate and the sustained phrases begin to fade and sag very slightly in comparison with the shaping of Wand or Karajan, but Ballot succeeds magnificently in creating a breathless hush, the descending octaves from the flutes hanging in the dusk like floating flares.
The finale is in many ways the most impressive movement of all. Ballot’s grip on phrasing, his exploitation of pauses and his meticulous care over dynamics results in a wholly satisfying melding of its four, disparate main themes into a coherent cosmic narrative. The din of the clashing cymbals in the final orchestral climax is overwhelming. Whatever your reservations regarding the arguable excesses of Ballot’s concept of this masterwork, this is a recording that every committed Brucknerian should hear.
A couple of pedantic niggles regarding the notes and their translation: Bruckner’s “Faszination für Zahlen” is rendered literally as his “fascination for numbers” when of course the correct preposition should be “with” if the sense intended is not to be reversed to mean that it is the numbers who are fascinated by Bruckner. Secondly, a critic is quoted as presumably favourably describing the Youth Orchestra as “[n]icht irgenwelche ästhetisch kaum erreichbaren Wiener, Berliner oder Münchner Philharmoniker”, which is translated into English as “not some aesthetically unapproachable Vienna, Berlin or Munich Philharmonic”. Apart from the fact that I cannot understand what is meant by the phrase in either language, “aesthetically unapproachable” sounds like a back-handed compliment, as does “scarcely accessible” – unless the sense is “irreproachable”.
-- Ralph Moore, MusicWeb International
Anton Bruckner: Lieder; Chore; Magnificat
Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 (Organ Version) / Giesen
SYMPHONY NO.7 SACD
Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 1-9 / Van Zweden, Netherlands Philharmonic
This release, containing all nine of Bruckner’s symphonies, is one of Challenge Classics’ greatest achievements so far. The quality of the performances- by both conductor and orchestra- and of the recordings makes this Bruckner’s complete survey a primary reference for anyone interested in such repertoire. Each one of these symphony recordings has received positive press. Of the Seventh: “Conductor and orchestra bring out the structural and thematic complexity of the final movement, in a fine end to another very strong and recommended performance.” (Classical Net Review) Of the Third: “This is a resplendent addition to an important cycle in the making.” (Gramophone) And of the Sixth: “Exceptional engineering achieved by Challenge Classics, with natural-sounding timbres and an extremely realistic sense of acoustic space.” (International Record Review) Jaap van Zweden has risen rapidly in the past decade to become one of today’s most sought-after conductors. He has been Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 2008, and Music Director of the Honk Kong Philharmonic Orchestra since 2012. Earlier this year he was announced as the next Music Director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Bruckner: String Quintet - String Quartet / Altomonte Ensemble
The Altomonte Ensemble, consisting of Rémy Ballot, violin, the violinist Iris Schützenberger, the violists Stefanie Kropfreiter and Peter Aigner and the cellist Jörgen Fog, presents two chamber music works by Anton Bruckner: the string quartet, composed 1861/62 at the suggestion of Joseph Hellmesberger, and the string quintet, composed in 1878/79, which is considered the highlight of Bruckner's chamber music oeuvre. The latter work was premiered by Hellmesberger and his extended quartet only after prolonged hesitation, since he originally had considered it in part as unplayable. The quintet has quite symphonic dimensions in terms of length and complexity. After the mentioned performance in 1884, a music critic wrote about the 3rd movement of the work: "This Adagio has an effect as if were something that had only been now unearthed in the vestiges of Beethoven's papers... a deeply felt work, inspired by inspiration and stemming from the composer's final years."
Bruckner: Symphony No. 1
Bruckner: Early Orchestral Pieces Arr. For Organ / Rudolf Innig
Bruckner: Symphonie No. 2 / Pinnock, Royal Academy Of Music Soloists Ensemble
BRUCKNER Symphony No. 2 (arr. Payne). J. STRAUSS II Wein, Weib und Gesang (arr. Berg) • Trevor Pinnock, cond; Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ens • LINN 442 (SACD: 65: 39)
A Bruckner symphony arranged for chamber orchestra? That really shouldn’t work—but it does, and it’s a spectacular success. Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, principal of the Royal Academy of Music, is the brains behind the project, and top honors go to him for his astute choice of symphony and even more astute choice of arranger, the composer Anthony Payne. Add to that the arrangement itself, which is a triumph of clarity and timbral focus, an interpretation from Trevor Pinnock, who proves to be an insightful Brucknerian (who knew?), orchestral playing from students who need fear no comparisons with the finest professionals, and exceptional SACD audio, and the result is an unqualified success on every count.
The release is the second in a series called Reigniting Schoenberg’s Vision . The idea is to recreate—or even reinvent—Schoenberg’s famous Society for Private Musical Performances, performing some of the chamber arrangements of symphonic works made for those events, and even, as in this case, correcting Schoenberg’s omissions by adding to the repertoire. Bruckner’s Second “Symphonie” (as it’s referred to throughout the accompanying literature, a curious affectation) is a daring but smart choice. While it is not particularly small of stature, its identity, character, and charm emanate more from its quieter passages than from its climaxes. Payne follows the spirit more than the letter of the Schoenberg/Berg/Stein arrangements, using a 20-piece ensemble, larger than in any of the Vienna reworkings, but substituting the full orchestra in similar ways, particularly in the use of piano and harmonium to provide essential, although usually invisible, support.
Some of the climaxes feel underpowered, but even here the pros of the arrangement outweigh the cons. We hear the stratospheric violin lines, the chugging bass figures, and the brass fanfares with a rare clarity. But it is in the quieter passages that this version really comes into its own. At the start, for example, the theme is given to the cellos. Here, we hear it as a cello solo, elegantly phrased and all the more beautiful for the sense of intimacy a single player can bring. In later passages, the bassoon writing is a particular revelation, and just as beautifully played. The opening of the Andante second movement, pared down to string sextet, is transporting in a way that only the very finest recordings of the full symphony manage. Some of the scherzo sounds a little hollow, but Pinnock and his small brass section ensure the momentum is maintained through finely calibrated accentuation. And in the finale, an appropriate gravitas is achieved, even in the absence of weight.
Trevor Pinnock brings many of the preoccupations of the period instrument movement to bear on the work, yet it never sounds dry. Details of phrasing and accentuation are addressed in every bar, and the smaller ensemble allows him to shape and color accompanying textures with as much care as the main themes. His tempos are propulsive, but never rigid, nor excessively fast. He seems to be in a quandary over the caesuras. The tutti cut-offs don’t need the time to decay, but the severity of the mood changes often require a pause for reflection, which he always gives.
The instrumentalists perform to an exceptionally high standard throughout. The playing of the string sextet is particularly impressive, highly expressive but finely controlled and balanced. So too the woodwind soloists, blending their tone in ensemble but taking full advantage of the increased exposure in solos to play with character and color. To all the other accolades for Jonathan Freeman-Attwood we must also add recording producer, another field in which he excels. The recording was made at St. George’s Bristol, and the sound is warm, but never excessively resonant. The clarity that Payne achieves in his arrangement is amplified at every step by the quality of the recorded sound.
If I’ve one grumble, it’s with the coupling, Alban Berg’s arrangement of Wine, Women, and Song . It follows hard on the heels of the Bruckner without any gap at all (not even time to jump up and switch it off) and it adds little. In comparison to Payne’s detailed and clear textures in the Bruckner, Berg’s arrangement feels bloated and unfocused. Berg had a different acoustic in mind of course, and a different setting in every sense. Presumably this arrangement is included to highlight the link with the Society for Private Musical Performances, but it’s unnecessary. Whatever inspiration Freeman-Attwood, Payne, and the RAM musicians have drawn from Schoenberg is of only historical interest as far as this recording is concerned: The project needs no further justification than the exceptional quality of the results.
FANFARE: Gavin Dixon
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 / Honeck, Pittsburgh Symphony
Bruckner: Symphony No 5 / Thielemann, Dresden Staatskapelle [blu-ray]
Also available on standard DVD
Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden are continuing their internationally acclaimed Bruckner cycle with the Symphony No. 5. For Anton Bruckner, his Fifth Symphony was a glorious confrontation with the music of the past – from a personal, biographical angle, but also as a departure from the composition techniques he preferred up to this point. Not for nothing is this tremendous opus magnum regarded as Bruckner’s “contrapuntal masterpiece”. In this universally lauded performance, Christian Thielemann, already the leading Bruckner interpreter of our times, has once again proven himself to be a “magician of the Bruckner sound”. (Kurier)
Anton Bruckner
SYMPHONY NO. 5
(Blu-ray Disc Version)
Dresden Staatskapelle
Christian Thielemann, conductor
Recorded live at the Semperoper, Saxon State Opera, Dresden, 2013
Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, German, French
Running time: 89 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 25)
Bruckner: Symphonie No. 9 arr. for organ / Gerd Schaller
“The reason for this transcription was simply that – once again – I had been busy with the Ninth, this time with the intention of arriving at the essence of the work: I wanted to understand Bruckner even better, come to grips with the architecture of his symphonic thought. And that led automatically to the idea of making an arrangement for a keyboard instrument, because when you tackle that, you are practically compelled to limit yourself to the essence of a work. And: The organ is Bruckner’s instrument, which stayed with him all his life. Even as a boy, Bruckner was fascinated by his father’s organ playing. Later, during his teacher training, he played the organ himself in small rural churches. After his return to the Augustine abbey of St. Florian he became its organist, then cathedral organist in Linz and finally the Emperor’s organist at the Hofburgkapelle in Vienna — of which he was very proud. The organ kept Bruckner company, then, right up to his death.” (Gerd Schaller) Hailed as one of the most significant Bruckner exponents of our time, Gerd Schaller is a freelance conductor in constant demand from leading ensembles, concert halls and opera houses at home and abroad as guest conductor. Along the way, in 2008, he founded Philharmonie Festiva, a symphony orchestra with which he pursues his own ambitious projects. For many years now, Schaller’s activities have centered on the music of Anton Bruckner, by whose combination of deep emotion and extreme complexity the conductor has been fascinated since he was a boy. This fascination has resulted in his large-scale project BRUCKNER2024, in which he aims to record all Bruckner’s significant works to album from his personal perspective by the composer’s bicentenary in 2024.
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7
Bruckner: Symphony No 3 / Wildner, Westphalia New Po
Wildner's conviction is immediately apparent in the first movement: Listen as he builds the opening's two great climaxes with arresting force, then infuses the following lyrical second subject with an ingratiating warmth. Fine as the first movement is, it's actually the Adagio and Finale that benefit most from Wildner's probing conducting, as both movements sound with a rare formal coherence married to dramatic impact. As a bonus, the first disc of this double set also includes the composer's intermediate version (1876) of the Adagio.
Bruckner's 1889 revision of the symphony is controversial for its sometimes ungainly melding of his early and late styles, as well as for the cuts--reportedly influenced by Franz Schalk--that gouge out large portions of the finale. However, Wildner miraculously smooths out the symphony's rough edges by adopting swift tempos (the first movement now has lost nearly four minutes), streamlined phrasing, and light textures; he also imparts an early-romantic, almost Mendelssohnian feel that makes this last version sound paradoxically like the earliest, contemporaneous with the Second Symphony.
The Westphalia New Philharmonic members perform with the same enthusiasm and expertise they displayed in their recording of the Ninth Symphony. And though the strings still don't match the richness of their world-class competition, the brass project more boldly and surely than before, and the orchestra as a whole cultivates an authentic yet distinctive Bruckner sound. Naxos' recording offers impressive clarity and dynamic range, though the dry hall acoustic doesn't provide much warmth. No matter--the heat generated by Wildner and his players more than compensates. [2/21/2004]
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com
Bruckner: Symphony No. 3 in D Minor, WAB 103
Bruckner: Symphony No. 8
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 - The 3 versions / Hruša, Bamberger Symphoniker
| Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony occupies a special position in Anton Bruckner's symphonic cycle. It heralds the cycle of his "mature" symphonies and with it the composer addressed his audience directly and wanted to be understood by them. He succeeded in this - today the “Romantic” is one of Bruckner's most popular symphonies. Still, he revised it time and again and today there are three versions of it. With the Bamberg Symphony, which can draw on many years of Bruckner interpretation, Jakub Hrusa has now recorded all versions of the Fourth Symphony. For a conductor, it is a unique opportunity to be able to record all versions of a symphony. In addition, as Hrusa says, the project enables the interested audience to form their own opinion of the quality and tailoring of the respective version. In this way, listeners can decide for themselves whether the composer was right in his doubts, and whether it makes any sense at all to “pit” one version against the other. |
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-Flat Major / Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic
Bruckner: Symphony No. 3
BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 6 in A major, WAB 106 / BACH: Prelude
Bruckner, A.: Symphony No. 6
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 / Haitink, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic
Bernard Haitink was born and educated in Amsterdam. His conducting career began at the Netherlands Radio where in 1957 he became the Chief Conductor of the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. The links between Bernard Haitink and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra have withstood the test of time, even when his career was taking him all over the world. One fine example of this was Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust in 1998, later issued on CD(CC 72517). He returned on 15 June 2019, when he gave his very last concert in Amsterdam, with Bruckner Symphony no. 7, a work that has always been especially dear to him.
Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 9
Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 3-4, 6-9 / Jansons, BRSO
Anton Bruckner's symphonies were a constant part of the repertoire for Mariss Jansons and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The existing recordings - almost all the great Bruckner symphonies – are important documents of Jansons’ deep understanding of the works, and the high musical quality of the recordings also testifies to the long Bruckner tradition at the BRSO. Jansons followed Bruckner’s notes and markings with painstaking precision, and listening to a recording with the score reveals again and again how closely the conductor studied these works with the musicians of his orchestra. Bruckner's symphonies form the backbone of Late Romantic symphonic music. To a certain extent, Bruckner reinvented the symphony – something that not even Liszt or Wagner had dared to do in the wake of the groundbreaking masterpieces of Beethoven, which until then had been considered the culmination and conclusion of the genre. It was Bruckner and, somewhat later, Brahms who sought and found new methods of reviving the symphonic genre and developing it further. In this regard, Bruckner's approach was entirely new. From the outset, he relied on the sound of the large orchestra and, rather than mixing the individual groups of instruments, he tended to either separate them from each other or couple them together like organ registers (with which, as an organist, he was very familiar). Terraced dynamics, that is, the immediate juxtaposition of piano and forte without transition, was also something Bruckner derived from organ music. As a church musician, he had close contact with these and other elements of Baroque music, and they flowed into his symphonies. As far as dramaturgical development was concerned, he tended to favor Schubert; indeed, it was the organic continuation and alternating interconnection of themes Bruckner had learned from Schubert that also explains the unprecedented performance length of his symphonies.
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 In E Major, Wab 107 (Live)
Welser-Möst conducts the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in this 1989 recording of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony. The interpretation by these young performers was astonishing in its transcendence and manner of outlining the work’s musical contrasts. It’s no surprise that the press greeted the conductor and orchestra as a sensation and great hope for the future.
Bruckner: Mass In E Minor, Motets / Creed, Et Al
This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 1-9 / Theielemann, Staatskapelle Dresden [Blu-ray]
This release contains the international acclaimed Bruckner cycle of Christian Thielemann, a “magician of the Bruckner sound”(Kurier on Symphony No. 5) and the Staatskapelle Dresden, whose own Bruckner tradition dates back more than a century. Outstanding reviews emphasize the exceptionally high artistic quality of the concerts: “Once again Thielemann proved to be the unrestricted ruler on his ancestral territory, German Romantic repertoire” (Hamburger Abendblatt on Symphony No. 2). Christian Thielemann “displays the full musical maelstrom of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3” (Münchner Merkur). “Another Bruckner triumph for Dresden” (Sächsische Zeitung on Symphony No. 6). “… one would have to be hard-hearted not to be touched by this heartfelt music” (Der Tagesspiegel on Symphony No. 8).
