Thomas Zehetmaier gets off to a fantastic start with Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3, the work marking his discographic debut as the principal conductor of the Musikkollegium Winterthur. This prizewinning, richly traditional Swiss orchestra once again offers a compelling performance enhanced by agile flexibility of chamber character. The overwhelming acoustics of the Winterthur Town Church contribute their share to the magnificent Bruckner sound, which here has been perfectly captured in three-dimensional 2+2+2 recording technology and released on a high resolution Super Audio album. Bruckner’s insecurity about his own works is legendary. He repeatedly submitted his symphonies to radical revisions- often because of a few critical remarks. In any event, the “Third” was a genuine disaster when it was premiered; the orchestra’s musicians are even said to have left the stage during the performance. Perhaps the absolutely servile accumulation of quotations from Wagner was then somewhat too much of a good thing. As a consequence, Bruckner eliminated all the excessive Tristan and Ring baggage, and the result was a work of appealing design. What causes difficulty for many a gigantic orchestra is easy for the Winterthur musicians: the realization of Bruckner’s original tempo relations represents a genuine challenge. The syncopated unison passages in the finale assume brute force in the prescribed Allegro that normally would have been beyond the reach of a trim orchestral ensemble. It has been a long time since Bruckner sounded so fresh!

In his keenly anticipated first release for Pentatone, rising young star Gustavo Gimeno conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg in a riveting performance Bruckner's towering First Symphony, heard in the lesser-known "Vienna" version of 1890-1891. Bruckner's massive orchestral landscapes often feel like unstoppable forces of nature: radiant, magnificent and thrilling, with a soul-searching beauty and power. Feelings of reverence and awe are accentuated by organ-like sonorities which are given new dimensions with blazes or orchestral color and disconcerting titanic shifts. Little wonder that his first symphony so bemused audiences at its premiere. Also included in this release are his Four Orchestral Pieces from 1862. These intriguing but sometimes overlooked works give a fascinating insight into Bruckner's developing compositional style. "Yesterday, a true conductor was born in the Concertgebouw", wrote the Dutch newspaper Het Parool of Gustavo Gimeno's conducting debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2014. His career has since taken off to widespread acclaim. In a busy schedule, he has since debuted with major orchestras in Europe and American and toured with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra to Taiwan and Japan. "Gimeno cultivates...a bright, transparent orchestral sound free of dull pathos and also rediscovers colors in this score," wrote the Trierischer Volksfreund in 2014."...Wonderful! This conductor is a discovery!" Starting with the 2015-2016 season, Gimeno took up the post of Music Director or the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, focussing on the first symphonies of Bruckner, Mahler, Beethoven, Schumann and Shostakovich. Together with the orchestra, he started an auspicious collaboration with Pentatone in 2016, with more releases planned in 2017.

Bruckner's symphonies form the backbone of Late Romantic symphonic music. Indeed, he can be said to have reinvented the symphony – something that not even Liszt or Wagner had dared to do in the wake of the groundbreaking masterpieces by Beethoven that until then had ranked as the climax and end-point 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. Terraced dynamics, that is, the immediate juxtaposition of piano and forte without transition, was also something Bruckner derived from the organ. 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's Nine Symphonies are a constant in the repertoire of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, as in those of all major orchestras. The special feature of the release being presented here by BR KLASSIK is that the recordings are conducted by not only one but a total of four conductors closely associated with the orchestra, all of them proven international Bruckner experts. More than in any other compilation, common features in interpretation (also due to the same orchestra) as well as fascinating differences due to the various interpretive approaches of the respective conductors can all be detected. In these recordings it also becomes clear what brilliant contributions Herbert Blomstedt, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons and Lorin Maazel have made over the decades to Bruckner’s symphonic oeuvre.

REVIEW:

Here we have a marvelous collection of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies Nos. 1-9 played by the Bavarian Radio Symphony under the baton of four outstanding conductors. Lorin Maazel recorded the first two symphonies in 1999. He does not provide any new insights, but the performances are thrilling nevertheless. The fifth and sixth symphonies with Haitink are also wonderful interpretations, but Blomstedt’s Ninth and the recordings with Jansons are more fluent and warmer than the other performances. Blomstedt offers an interpretation aimed at salvation, without any fear of death. This positive view is good for the music, but also enables profound moments of contemplation. For Jansons one could summarize and say that Jansons inspires his orchestra to a breathtakingly intense playing. From the very beginning one feels the strong lyrical and luminous power providing an eloquent, rhetoric performance.

-- Pizzicato

Better known in Europe than the U.S., Wand nevertheless made his mark in Germanic orchestral repertoire, most especially in this series of magnificent recordings of Bruckner's symphonies, one of the most revered cycles on record.

Anton Bruckner is a composer with an unmistakable musical language: darkly glowing, overwhelmingly beautiful, but also energetic and innovative. For the Berliner Philharmoniker, this music has been part of their artistic identity for over a hundred years. The orchestra now presents Bruckner's symphonies in an exclusive edition, recorded over the last ten years together with some of the foremost Bruckner interpreters of our time. The Berliner Philharmoniker is a German orchestra based in Berlin which is consistently ranked among the top orchestras in the world, distinguished amongst peers for it's virtuosity and compelling sound.

BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 9, WAB 109

A New York Times 25 Best Classical Track Selection for 2019

Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra continue to amaze! Reference Recordings proudly presents this iconic work in a new and definitive interpretation from Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, in superb audiophile sound. This hybrid SACD release was recorded live in the beautiful and historic Heinz Hall, home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. As an important added feature, in his deeply personal and scholarly music notes, Maestro Honeck gives us great insight into the history and the musical structure of Bruckner’s final composition, and describes how he conducts and interprets this masterwork. This release and the entire Pittsburgh Live! series are recorded and mastered by the team at Soundmirror, Inc.

REVIEWS:

This is an amazing performance, captured in terrific sound. It’s the most savage Bruckner Ninth since Jochum’s Dresden recording on EMI, especially in the terrifying first-movement coda and the positively vicious, swift account of the scherzo. Honeck’s aided by typically exceptional brass playing, with horns, trumpets, and trombones well differentiated in timbre, their musical lines clear in even the densest tuttis. The strings, too, make gorgeous sounds in the first movement’s second-subject “song period,” and throughout the Adagio. In the latter, at that special moment when the chorale suddenly breaks in about halfway through, the effect is truly heavenly (but not a bit saccharine).

Still, what makes this recording so extraordinary is the conducting. Many conductors play Bruckner’s music as a succession of discrete blocks, which of course it is, and that’s certainly a legitimate way to do it. Honeck however, again like Jochum and certain others (Furtwängler, to some degree), employs a wide range of tempo within a movement to join the music’s various sections together; but so seamlessly does the music flow forward, and so skillfully does he manage the transitions, that you’re hardly conscious of them.

The timings are deceptive in this regard: 25 minutes in the first movement, nearly 28 in the Adagio, but I can’t recall a performance that so successfully suspends any feeling of time passing. It just “happens”, in such a way that when each movement stops you might find yourself shocked that the end has arrived, seemingly so punctually. For this reason, while Bruckner fans will certainly have to hear this, I can also recommend this release with equal enthusiasm to those who have hitherto found the composer clunky, sluggish, or dull. There’s an organic unity here that’s very special, and wholly unique.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz, 10/10)

This may well be Honeck and Pittsburgh's finest recording so far: breathtakingly intense, magnificently played, and unrelentingly fresh.

– New York Times (David Allen)

The genesis of Anton Bruckner's Eighth Symphony was probably affected by a bout of sudden fame that boosted the composer's constantly shaky self-confidence. After the performance of Bruckner's Seventh, the famous conductor Hermann Levi had hailed him as "the greatest symphonist since the death of Beethoven". Frequently ridiculed in Vienna, Bruckner had finally been taken seriously in Munich: his importance had been recognized, and the Austrian emperor had awarded him the Order of Franz Joseph - something that filled Bruckner with very special pride. In the summer of 1884 he set to work on a new symphony, and in August 1887, after three years of work, the symphony was completed. Because of energetic objections from Levi, however, it was not immediately performed. Bruckner revised his work thoroughly between October 1887 and March 1890, and the premiere of the Eighth Symphony in it's new version finally took place on December 18, 1892, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Hans Richter. It was an extraordinary success. Hugo Wolf described the concert as follows: "It was an absolute victory of light over darkness, and the storm of delighted applause was like some elemental manifestation of nature. In short, it was a triumph as complete as any Roman emperor could have wished for." Since then, Bruckner's Eighth Symphony has been an integral part of the symphonic repertoire, yet it still continues to present a huge challenge to performers. Mariss Jansons and the musicians of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks are however more than equal to the extraordinary demands made by this masterpiece. The recording of the Munich concert event of November 2017 has now been released by BR-KLASSIK: it is an exemplary performance of one of the most important compositions of the Late Romantic symphonic repertoire, in it's version of 1890.

"• Wilhelm Furtwängler is considered as one of the most important Bruckner conductors of all times. • With this box you can approve this easy. • All important live recordings of the Maestro collected in one Box set. • Includes his legendary war performances plus the unique No. 7 (appraised from all reviewers as one of the best recordings of the score) recording from Rom. • 6 CD Box"

This live recording differs from the recording included in the complete box set of Bruckner Symphonies on RCA Red Seal 60075.

The Chicago Tribune described the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's May 2007 performance of Bruckner's Symphony No.7 as a 'glowing and eloquent account.' Now available to the world as the second release from CSO Resound, this recording showcases the remarkable chemistry between the CSO and Principal Conductor Bernard Haitink, who perform with what the Chicago Sun-Times calls 'an almost extrasensory connection.' Recorded live in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center in Chicago on May 10, 11, 12 and 15, 2007.

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.

Anton Bruckner wrote his Symphony No. 6 over a period of two years, completing it in September 1881. And for once with this composer, the word ‘completing’ can be used without qualification: known for his habit of reworking and revising his works, Bruckner for once seems to have been satisfied with the result of his efforts. That doesn’t mean that the Sixth has enjoyed a smoother passage to the concert stage than other Bruckner symphonies, however. The only performance in Bruckner’s lifetime was a partial one, of the two middle movements, and when Gustav Mahler conducted the first ‘full’ performance in 1899, he made a number of substantial cuts and other amendments. In fact, the true premiere of the Sixth as Bruckner wrote it had to wait until 1935, almost 40 years after the composer’s death. And the work is still something of a Cinderella in the Bruckner catalogue, with far fewer outings in concert halls or on disc than for instance the Fourth or the Seventh. Bruckner called the Sixth his ‘boldest’ symphony – with a duration of ‘only’ some 55 minutes it is at any rate one of the shorter, but possibly the composer was thinking of the remarkably expansive Adagio or the ambiguous Scherzo, or of the way the so-called ‘Bruckner rhythm’ (different combinations of a duplet and a triplet) pervades the work. The present release is the first in a Bruckner ‘mini-series’ from Thomas Dausgaard and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, appearing together on disc for the first time.

Following a visit to Wagner in Bayreuth in 1873, Anton Bruckner dedicated his most recent symphony, No.3 in D minor, to ‘the unattainable world-famous noble master of poetry and music’ and would later refer to the work as his ‘Wagner Symphony’. Among Bruckner’s symphonies, it is the one with the most complicated genesis: the first version was followed by substantial revisions and it exists in two more versions, from 1877/78 and 1888/89. The first version was never performed in Bruckner’s lifetime – in fact, more than a century passed before the work was heard in the form that Wagner first knew and called ‘a masterpiece’. This is the version that Thomas Dausgaard has chosen to perform, as he and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra follow up on their recording of the composer’s Sixth Symphony, praised in Fanfare for having ‘all of Bruckner’s splendor and tenderness without any excess baggage’. Dausgaard explains the reason for his choice as follows: ‘The original version stands as a monolith … what you go through is musically so strong, swinging between timelessness and drive, despair and ecstasy, divine light and hellish fire, that in the end I feel you have to let yourself go and be won over by it.’

REVIEW:

Dausgaard's Bruckner symphonies tend toward the quick side, but he has never been quite as relatively fast as he is here; his original Symphony No. 3 is more than 12 minutes faster than a version by Kent Nagano from the early 2000s, and his reading comes in even shorter than some of the recordings of Bruckner's abridged versions. This is all to the good, even for listeners who prefer heavier Bruckner to Dausgaard's rather lithe style. Dausgaard's quick tempos catch the kaleidoscope of moods, and with them, the febrile quality of Bruckner's imagination in this work, really his creative breakthrough. Dausgaard's management of his Bergen musicians is, as usual, exemplary as they skitter through the difficult passages that bedeviled the symphony's early interpreters. A high point in Dausgaard's Bruckner project.

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

Alongside those with Simone Young and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, OehmsClassics is now offering the third Bruckner cycle here with Ivor Bolton. This time it includes ''only'' the Symphonies Nos. 1 and 9. In its April 2017 issue, the renowned Gramophone Magazine wrote the following about the Second Symphony: ''The overall impression is one of vividness and transparency, aided by the exemplary recording...Among single-disc offerings of the 1872 edition, Bolton's recording is hard to beat.''

Past praise of previously issued recordings included in this set:

Bruckner: Symphony No 3 / Bolton, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra:

There is a compelling sweep to Bolton’s interpretation, replete with an atmospheric and detailed recording. And the ending could hardly be more final, more unequivocal, just as Bruckner surely intended.

– MusicWeb International

Bruckner: Symphony No 6 / Ivor Bolton, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg

An excellent recording overall. The focus on detail really justifies many of Bruckner's compositional decisions. More grandiose recordings make the work out to be more like the monumental Eighth or Ninth. It is always going to suffer by comparison with them, so in many ways Bolton's approach - to treat the often delicate textures with more care and attention - better represents its more modest aspirations.

– MusicWeb International