The seventh symphony is, along with the fourth, the most popular of Bruckner's eleven symphonies. Although Bruckner set up the essentials of his personal symphonic form with his first symphony, he varies the movement forms and order in significant ways as he moves through the cycle. With the seventh he reverses the relative weight and scale of the slow movement, which is greatly expanded, with the finale which is correspondingly lighter. The slow movements of the last three symphonies are among the most profound utterances in the literature, the seventh's andante being only eclipsed by the adagios of the eighth and ninth. The seventh is a wonderful entry into the profoundly spiritual world of late Bruckner.
Georg Tintner's cycle on Naxos has indulged in a number of interesting choices regarding which version he has chosen to record. The seventh is somewhat unique, in having been a success at its first performances; it escaped the revisions the composer felt necessary for many of his other works. Tintner offers a particularly lean view of the composer, which is an interesting alternative to the more upholstered sound usually heard. The conductor's notes are an especial bonus to this fine budget release.

This is a re-release of an SWRmusic-Bestseller. It contains Bruckner‘s most famous symphony heard in an outstanding interpretation. Kurt Sanderling, at that moment already 83 years old, fully demonstrates the experience gained from his long career, at his side an SWR Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart performing at the highest level. More than just a resident of Berlin, Kurt Sanderling has always been very closely connected with the city. It was here that he began his artistic career as voice coach at the Stadtische Oper at the age of eighteen, when Otto Klemperer, Erich Kleiber, Leo Blech and Wilhelm Furtwangler were conducting. Sanderlings guest tours took him almost everywhere in Eastern and Western Europe, to Japan, and the USA, where he conducted the world’s leading ensembles.

Although the timings for this recording are about as typical as one will find, the performance is distinctive. Russian-born and American-trained conductor Jakov Kreizberg gives us a rather subdued first movement, beautifully paced and carefully balanced, with the Vienna Symphony drawing close to its senior rival, the Philharmonic, in the beauty of its playing. The mood becomes downright solemn in the Adagio, the most important movement in this symphony. The first subject is funereal, suggesting that Kreizberg recalls that Bruckner intended it as a memorial to Richard Wagner, seriously ill when the composer began his work on it, and deceased before its completion. The contrasting second subject, which can be played as a cheerful contrast, here maintains the original air of seriousness, while realizing in unusually high degree Bruckner’s splendid part-writing in the strings. The build-up to the movement’s climax is unhurried, making the outburst of the full orchestra, complete with crashing cymbals and thunderous drums, even more effective than usual. The long coda comes across as the lamentation Bruckner intended.

Kreizberg then demonstrates that this symphony, unlike several by the composer, changes from solemnity to robust affirmation in its two shorter and concluding movements. After a fast and boisterous Scherzo, we hear a suitably Haydnesque finale, full of playfulness and affirmation. In sum, this is a first-rate Bruckner Seventh, sounding very good in stereo and even better in multichannel SACD mode. Its measured pacing in the first two movements, along with the use of modern instruments, make it a quite different affair from the recent and highly praised Herreweghe recording for Harmonia Mundi, also available as an SACD, with its original instruments and brisk tempos. More dramatic recordings exist, to be sure: one thinks of several deceased masters—to name a few, Eugen Jochum, Günter Wand, Georg Tintner, Hans Knappertsbusch, Kurt Eichhorn, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Otto Klemperer, and Kurt Sanderling. But Kreizberg’s thoughtful and superbly executed interpretation deserves a wide hearing.

Robert McColley, FANFARE

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

"The orchestra is fine, its brass smooth, clean, deeply sonorous...the Pentatone SACD recording is clear and solid with exceptional dynamic range, and clean as a whistle...Janowski knows his Bruckner as well as anyone around." - American Record Guide

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Also available as a hybrid Super Audio CD


This is only Haitink's third(!) recording of this symphony. Happily, he never remade it with the Vienna Philharmonic, having recorded it twice with the Concertgebouw. His first recording, the one that always has been reissued in the complete symphonies box and also as a Philips Duo, is a swift, somewhat pallid performance, shallowly recorded to boot. The later one, from 1978, just missed the digital era but remains one of the great performances. Not surprisingly it has been ignored by Philips in favor of its inferior predecessor. One of the most noteworthy qualities of that performance was the climax of the Adagio (with a resplendent cymbal crash), so perfectly timed that I never imagined I'd hear it repeated. Haitink does it again here.

In fact, this live performance is every bit as stunningly played as its 1978 predecessor. The tempos are just a hair more measured in the first movement and finale, but always supple, fluid, and perfectly judged between sections (and certainly not slow by today's standards). The transition from the second to third subjects in the first movement offers one example, and the continuation of the Adagio's main theme (after the "non confundar" motive from Bruckner's Te Deum) provides another. This being Chicago, the brass sound spectacular, but so do the strings and winds. In short, there is absolutely nothing here to criticize. When the results are this outstanding, it's pointless to complain that Haitink keeps recording the same music over and over. In the final analysis, a great performance must be its own justification, and this is a great performance. Happily, the sonics allow the music to leap from the speakers with the same vibrancy and impact as the interpretation itself, and the audience is very silent. Wonderful!

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

REVIEWS:
BBC Music (5/98, p.66) - Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5) - "...the New Zealand-based Tintner uses local forces in a forthright performance which lays emphasis on Bruckner's cross-rhythms. Sound textures are rich, the melodies of the slow movement particularly intense..."

Also available on Blu-ray

Since taking up his post as principal conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle in 2012, Christian Thielemann has launched each new concert season with a Bruckner symphony. In autumn 2015 he choose for the opening concert at Dresden’s historic Semperoper the Sixth, and for the Sächsische Zeitung this performance marked “another Bruckner triumph for Dresden”. Thielemann once more “conjured up the most magical of sonorities” and “the orchestra played magnificently under him“. (Der Neue Merker) Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony is an interesting work among the composer’s other repertoire, as it doesn’t bear his typical compositional style, which surprised both audiences and critics when it premiered. Robert Simpson wrote of the work: “Its themes are exceptionally beautiful, its harmony has moments of both boldness and subtlety, its instrumentation is the most imaginative that he had yet achieved, and it possesses a mastery of classical form that might even have impressed Brahms.”

Herbert Blomstedt has recorded Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 6 in A major several times since the early 1980s, which makes him something of a champion for this comparatively under-recorded work. His live 2008 recording with the the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is the first super audio version he has made, and while audiophiles will be attracted to it and his other SACDs in the Bruckner cycle on Querstand, it is recommended to a general audience as well. Blomstedt is a past master in Bruckner's music, with decades of intimate experience, and his controlled expression, steady pacing, and clear conception of the formal needs of the symphony make him an excellent guide, especially for listeners who might not know it as well as the more popular Fourth or the Seventh. Leipzig's playing is full in expression and rich in tone, though the music never feels heavy or plodding, thanks to Blomstedt's light touch and forward propulsion. High energy is sustained throughout, even in the Adagio where the slightest slackening of tempo can distract from the movement's building outpouring of emotion, and there is an air of suspense that holds the listener's attention through the fast movements, most notably in the Scherzo and the Finale. The reproduction is exceptional in every way, providing vivid orchestral colors, credible dimensions, and a fine balance between acoustic resonance and precise details that are perfectly audible. Highly recommended.

-- All Music Guide

Bruckner: Symphony No. 5, Wab 105

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

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)

Also available on Blu-ray

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


Dresden Staatskapelle
Christian Thielemann, conductor

Recorded live at the Semperoper, Saxon State Opera, Dresden, 2013

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, German, French
Running time: 89 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Classical Music

Symphony No. 5 is widely considered as the finest among the nine numbered symphonies of Anton Bruckner, and ranks among his most famous works. In their first recording on Chandos for almost ten years, the Residentie Orchestra The Hague here performs the work under its chief conductor, Neeme Järvi, who has conducted the symphony with orchestras across the globe, and is recognised as one of the key interpreters of it. The reputation of the Residentie Orchestra The Hague as one of the finest orchestras in Europe makes it an appropriate figurehead for The Hague as a cosmopolitan city of justice, peace and culture.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 is the work Bruckner scholar and composer Robert Simpson considered to be the greatest of all Bruckner symphonies. Here is a recent live concert performance led by Bruckner expert Bernard Haitink. There are people who collect Bruckner 5ths; a lyrical, fascinating masterpiece and one of the few pieces by Bruckner that employs contrapuntal development as well as fascinating harmonic sophistication. The piece is also graced with arrestingly beautiful melodies.