The present release is the most comprehensive Bruckner Symphonies cycle, including all 19 available versions. Anton Bruckner burst out of the confines of the cathedral using that most secular of musical forms, the symphony. The creator of some of the 19th century’s greatest orchestral music, Bruckner cut a singular figure among his contemporaries. This new complete Bruckner Symphonies edition from Capriccio reassesses these enduringly enigmatic and complex works. Presented by the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and featuring all 19 available versions, the cycle is scheduled for completion in 2024, Bruckner’s 200th birthday. The second release, of Symphony No. 8 (1890 version) is performed by Bruckner Orchestra Linz conducted by Markus Poschner.

Start of the most comprehensive Bruckner Symphonies Edition incl. all available 19 versions. Bruckner burst out of the confines of the cathedral using that most secular of musical forms: the symphony. It is with reflexive reoccurrence in music history that supposed performance traditions burn themselves into a score as if they were a given… and the more so, the further we get from the work’s creation. So many clichés and truths about his person and his work are at last being questioned or, if they aren’t yet, are overdue some scrutiny. It is an essential aspect of this album edition to read and understand the text fresh and anew. Whence does Bruckner’s music come and whereunto does it point? With the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra Capriccio could engage two of the best Austrian orchestras for this in total 19 versions counting cycle. With about 1065 minutes of music this complete symphonic edition will be finished in 2024, when we will celebrate Bruckner’s 200th Birthday.

REVIEW:

This is the first release in what promises to be a complete cycle of all of the Bruckner symphonies in all of their various versions. It would be more exciting if the industry hadn’t already been spitting out Bruckner symphony recordings like a baseball dugout chewing tobacco, but perhaps when this series concludes, in 2024, the 200th anniversary of Bruckner’s birth, the mania will subside for a while and we can move on to other things. Of course, this assumes that the moronic apparatus known as Bruckner “scholarship” stops issuing new editions of the symphonies.

Markus Poschner’s view of the Sixth reminds me of Jochum’s. It’s a lively, rhythmically alert interpretation that permits a welcome flexibility of pulse, reserving the moments of gravity for the Adagio and such intimate passages as those in the finale’s second subject. Poschner’s careful attention to rhythm pays big dividends in the first movement’s development section, and especially in the scherzo, which is unquestionably one of the finest on disc. I do wish he had made a bit more out of the finale’s closing pages. He just plows straight through them, accepting the slight feeling of anticlimax that results; but then, that’s really Bruckner’s fault.

Of course, the Bruckner Orchestra of Linz knows the music as well as any group in existence, but what impresses most is its ability to keep it sounding so fresh. I mean, imagine growing up on a diet of Bruckner and Philip Glass symphonies. Kill me now. So good job all around, including the clean and clear engineering. Up next: the 1890 Eighth in Nowak’s edition. Keep your fingers crossed.

– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

The Amazon rainforest is almost mythical in it's richness and diversity, and music inspired by it is often the same. On AMAZ�NIA, composer Miguel Kertsman captures the awe-inspiring beauty and fragility of one of the world's natural wonders and pays homage to his homeland of Brazil. Featuring four of his earlier symphonic works, the album peers into the budding composer's early career, already rich with genre experimentation and musical storytelling. Kertsman's juxtaposition of Brazilian folk tradition with orchestral composition bends the rules of classical, creating a worldly sound with universal resonance.

This final release of Capriccios Bruckner Symphonies - The Complete Versions Edition includes his very first and last Symphony. In March 1861, Anton Bruckner completed his counterpoint studies with the renowned teacher Simon Sechter who had also taught Schubert. His graduation signaled the end of an extended compositional hiatus. Bruckner's F-Minor Symphony was conceived in the classical and early romantic tradition of Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann. Bruckner's Ninth: his best (as some say) symphony, certainly his most daring and, thanks to the missing finale, his most mysterious. It is where Bruckner meets Mahler and, while working on it, his maker. He wanted to write a finale, of course, but too much remains missing. What is left, is a heavenly Adagio, which quietly fades away with references in the brass to the two preceding symphonies. Thus ends Bruckner's uncompleted life's work.

Anton Bruckner began the revision of his Third Symphony after completing the Fifth on 16 May 1876 and continued working on it sporadically until 28 April 1877. Then, after the Vienna Philharmonic rejected the Symphony for a third time, Bruckner's friend, Hofkapellmeister Johann Herbeck, took matters into his own hands. He arranged to conduct the work himself on the concert series of the Society for the Friends of Music [Gesellschaftskonzerte] on 16 December 1877. After Herbeck passed away unexpectedly, Bruckner was forced to conduct the symphony himself. The performance proved to be one of the worst debacles of his career. The players were rude and unreceptive, and the audience left the concert hall in droves. Despite the public fiasco, Theodor Rattig, one of the few people who stayed, offered to publish the symphony. Two other people who were there at the end, Gustav Mahler and Rudolf Krzyzanowski, prepared a piano four-hand reduction for Rattig's publication which appeared at the end of 1879. It was the first publication of a Bruckner Symphony.

Anton Bruckner finally received the award of an honorary doctorate of the University of Vienna on 11 December 1891. For Bruckner, receiving the doctorate fulfilled a long-time wish. He had spent most of his life pursuing academic credentials and applied for honorary doctorates at Cambridge University in 1882 and at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Cincinnati in 1885. Two days later, Hans Richter conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the first performance of the second or so-called “Vienna” version of the composer’s First Symphony, which he had dedicated to the university in gratitude for the degree. The changes Bruckner made in the revised version of the First Symphony are not as extensive as those he made to the Third, Fourth, and Eighth Symphonies during the late 1880s and early 1890s. His revisions to the First Symphony did not affect the overall form of any of the movements. He changed many details of orchestration, articulation, and phrase length, some of which are difficult to notice on first hearing. The 1891 autograph score is, nevertheless, the composer’s final word on how he wanted his First Symphony to be performed and understood.

By his own reckoning, Bruckner began his career as a professional composer when he was thirty-nine years old. With a mere exercise for a symphony under his belt – the unnumbered one in F minor – he was now ready to write his first true symphony. The world was not. First performed in 1868 in Linz – badly – the work flopped and was put aside until nine years and five symphonies later, when it was gently adjusted. A subsequent performance in 1884 was Bruckner’s “most successful Viennese performance to date”, prompting, perplexingly, a thorough revision that would be the 1891 “Vienna” version. This recording uses the unadulterated 1868 “Linz” version.

Bruckner’s Third Symphony had always been something of a problem child among Bruckner’s symphonies, from its disastrous first reception (an enthused youthful Gustav Mahler notwithstanding) until well into the 20th century. In its original form, it is the longest, most Wagnerian of his symphonies – and often considered, rightly or not, the first truly Brucknerian symphony. While some cherish the uncompromising originality of the first version, Bruckner himself wanted the third, much tightened Edition performed, finding it “incomparably better”. It is that final version that is here recorded – and listeners can now easily decide for themselves.