"I am more a friend of live performances and don’t believe that much in studio recordings,” commented Simone Young in an interview with Park Avenue...
"I am more a friend of live performances and don’t believe that much in studio recordings,” commented Simone Young in an interview with Park Avenue magazine. “Our CDs are therefore recordings of live concerts. This was demonstrated with the Hamburg Philharmonic: that is an orchestra with which I can make a statement.”
The press reacted with enthusiastic reviews of the first CD out of Hamburg (Bruckner’s Second Symphony, Original Version of 1872): “More analytical than her role-model Daniel Barenboim, but more impulsive than the unforgettable Günter Wand, Simone Young awakes the works of Bruckner’s early years to orchestral life.” (KulturSPIEGEL)
Now, following the fulminate success of the first CD comes Volume 2 with the Third Symphony as a live recording, also in its original version (1873), with the unmistakable acoustics of the Hamburger Musikhalle.
REVIEWS:
A fair number of conductors...have recorded the original version of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 in D minor, replete with the quotations from Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Die Walküre, and Die Meistersinger, as well as quotes from Franz Liszt's Graner Messe and Bruckner's own Mass in D minor...
The Urfassung of 1873 runs to over 68 minutes, and it is easily the longest version of any symphony Bruckner composed, a dubious achievement for those who think less is more. Still, if this expansive version is the one listeners seek, then Young's exemplary performance is certainly among the best available, both for her deeply sympathetic interpretation and the committed playing of the Hamburg Philharmonic. This live performance is captured with sharp yet spacious reproduction, which is well served by the hybrid SACD format.
-- AllMusic.com
