Cut or Uncut?

Anton Bruckner would have been 200 years old in 2024. Instead of using flowery but ultimately helpless advertising slogans to promote the 100th release for the Bruckner Year, we are trying to encourage people to think about production processes in classical music with a special release. What is a recording actually about?

Anton Bruckner's 7th Symphony twice in full length, each time on one CD. A live recording (uncut) and a studio production (cut) under identical conditions. Compare them! And don't allow your judgement to be swayed by different recording circumstances!

This comparison would not have been possible without András Keller and Concerto Budapest. András Keller follows an unbroken European tradition that stretches way back into the last century, perhaps even as far back as Anton Bruckner himself. And the monumental arches and climaxes in Anton Bruckner's music are perfect for every listener to ask themselves: What do I want from a recording? What moves me more, live or produced, cut or uncut?

Anton Bruckner's Fifth Symphony is one of the most moving and magnificent of his symphonic works. Matthias Giesen, who has been working for more than 20 years as the organist and stablemaster of the Monastery of St. Florian, where Bruckner started his musical training as a choirboy, presents his transcription for organ of this monumental opus on this recording for Gramola. Matthias Giesen refined his rendition of Bruckner's Fifth on the Bruckner organ of St. Florian, which can be heard on this recording, but also on numerous other organs for many years in order to do justice to the work both in terms of technical and musical matters. In 2017, Giesen presented his adaptation of the "Fantastic", which Bruckner himself never heard in orchestral version during his lifetime, for the first time to an enthusiastic audience.

Christian Thielemann conducts the Munich Philharmonic in 2 symphonies by Bruckner.

Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden already released the Bruckner symphonies Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 and continue their Bruckner Cycle at the Philharmonie in Munich with Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Bruckner's first masterful composition. Thielemann, widely regarded as the leading Brucknerian of our age, opted for the more lively early original Linz version of this symphony. Buckner himself called it "a cheeky wench" and said about the finale: "Never again have I been so audacious and bold." Christian Thielemann has been the Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden for six years. In that time, and even from before, he has amassed a comprehensive catalogue of recordings. The Bruckner cycle with the Staatskapelle Dresden is his most ambitious and most well-received series yet.

After the release of the Bruckner Symphonies Nos. 5, 8, and 9 with Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Bruckner cycle is continued here with Symphony No. 4, “Romantic,” one of Bruckner’s most popular works. Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony was dedicated to Prince Konstantin of Hohenloe-Schillingsfurst. It premiered in 1881 to much acclaim. Given the name “Romantic” by the composer himself, Bruckner emulates with this composition the same emotions as fellow Romantic composers Wagner, Berlioz, and Mendelssohn. It is performed here in the presumed original version recovered by Robert Haas, which differs considerably from the first published score, accepted by Bruckner as a stopgap only so that the work could easily be performed. The press cheered the performance: “Tone paintings of the finest quality.”

Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden already released the Bruckner Symphonies Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 and continue their Bruckner Cycle at the Philharmonie in Munich with a ''radiant and majestic'' (The Guardian) performance of Symphony No. 3, also known as ''Wagner Symphony''. Thielemann, a more than experienced Bruckner interpreter, has once again proven himself as the top of his class, with masterly control over a shining wind section, which ''pushed the audience deeply into their seats''. With ''moments of disruptive suspense and intense audio density he displays the full musical maelstrom of Bruckners Symphony No. 3'' (Munchner Merkur). ''Thielemann and the Dresdeners played with Third Symphony...here radiant and majestic, clean ensemble giving a welcome illusion of structural clarity.'' (The Guardian about the performance at the Proms) ''...the orchestra unfolds from the beginning in fullest splendor''. (Suddeutsche Zeitung)

A staggeringly powerful reading, it represents one of the high points in Furtwängler’s entire discography. Like his two BPO accounts from 1949, this one with the VPO uses modified Haas—the latter’s insertion of 10 bars from the 1887’s Adagio is omitted—and there are elements from the 1892 Schalk (a cymbal clash is heard in the 1949 finales, but not in this one). This 1944 has greater passion and is more listenable than are either of the BPO 1949s.

-- Jeffrey J. Lipscomb, FANFARE [reviewing the box set of Bruckner symphonies conducted by Furtwängler, Music & Arts 1209]

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Dedicated to Ludwig II of Bavaria, Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E major brought Bruckner the greatest success he had known in his life. The symphony is sometimes referred to as the “Lyric,” though the appellation is not the composer’s own, and is seldom used. The present release is part of the world’s first major Bruckner cycle from his home of St. Florian, with the Altomonte Orchestra under Remy Ballot. Since 2013, the award-winning ensemble has recorded Bruckner’s Third, Eighth, Ninth, Sixth, Fifth, and now Seventh symphonies. The “Gramola Bruckner Days Set” is already half full! The Altomonte Festival Orchestra was founded in 1996, the 100th anniversary of Bruckner’s death, by the legendary church musician Augustinus Franz Dropfreiter and the cellist Thomas Wall. It counts among its members several of the highest-ranking musicians from the leading orchestras of Europe, together with some of the most outstanding of today’s emerging young players. The name of the orchestra is taken from the18th Century father-and-son painters Martino and Barholomeo Altomonte, who adorned the magnificent rooms of the St. Florian Monastery with their beautiful, large-scale frescoes. Matthias Giessen has led the orchestra since 2003. From 2013, Rémy Ballot has conducted the orchestra, achieving widespread acclaim with his Bruckner interpretations.

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Gerd Schaller writes of this new release: “Although extremely numerous and insightful, the surviving fragments of this movement, which were left at various stages of development, present a very incomplete picture of Bruckner’s Ninth. Nevertheless, throughout the decades in which I have theoretically and practically (as a conductor) studied Bruckner’s works, I have always found it regrettable that these fascinating sketches and ideas might never be played at all simply because they were not left in a playable form. Before I embarked on the task of filling in and completing the final movement, I did of course have to consider whether aspiring to finish such a masterpiece as Bruckner’s Ninth might be seen as somewhat presumptuous. A further exploration of the Ninth Symphony in the run-up to a performance is what eventually prompted me to assemble the final movement. Whilst it might be seen as presumption, I believed it to be altogether possible and even desirable to incorporate Bruckner’s incredibly daring and fascinating sketches and drafts into a playable and, most importantly, musically convincing form.“

Gunter Wand conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Michael Schopper, who is known predominantly as a singer, performs here as a pianist.

For this CD a chronological cross-section of Anton Bruckner's work was chosen for the recorded concert, from the very first composition of an 11 year-old, a Pange lingua, to the late Vexilla Regis. It's often hard to define Bruckner's musical roots and origins, since his first symphony already bears his unmistakable stamp, but some of these seldom performed early sacred works, still prescribing to 18th and early-19th c. Upper Austrian church tradition, can give an idea of his musical background. The chorale melodies, by Bruckner himself, display typical Alpine regional melodic attributes.

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