Abbado recorded this symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic way back in 1970 (Decca, 1/71 – nla). Since, in those days, Decca kept faith with their catalogue over long periods of time, the LP remained available throughout the 1970s. Yet it was a cool and rather bloodless performance that tended to linger somewhat to the rear of the small but by no means uncompetitive field.
The new account is far from bloodless. It is a live performance played with great trenchancy and passion. Back in 1971, Deryck Cooke noted a lack of breadth and power in the playing and conducting at the start of the finale. I don’t think he would have any such reservations now! The unison C with its bleak underpinning of trombones and timpani is hurled down like a thunderbolt. If only Bruckner could have heard it played like this, he would not have run off and altered it, damping down the brass and timpani so as to make the effect (as he thought) less comic, less like a man bursting unannounced into a room full of people. Solti is thrilling here, too, but he does not bring the trombones forward in the way Abbado does. The Vienna trombones are also blacker-toned than their Chicago rivals, and their massed horns a good deal more exciting in the wild eructations of sound in the double-dotted hollerings at bar 19.
It is also possible to think that the Vienna Philharmonic are better able to keep their feet firmly planted in the fast and furious Scherzo. Abbado is suitably quick, but he gives his players more time than Solti, allowing for a wonderfully landler-like kick on the upbeats in bars 9 and 21.
So having given the Solti a rave review a year ago, am I now suggesting that Abbado is even better? Well, not entirely. Another thing that Deryck Cooke noted back in 1971 was Abbado’s habit of dropping back the tempo at moments when no dropping back is either needed or called for. There is, for example, no real need to take the cantabile section at bar 38 of the first movement at a slower pace than the opening. Solti stays in tempo here, finely, sensitively; Abbado rather lets the tension slacken.
So what to do when faced with two such generally fine performances and recordings? My inclination, faced with a difficult choice in Bruckner, is to say, ‘If it’s a choice between orchestra X and the Vienna Philharmonic, go for the Vienna Philharmonic’. On that basis, I would be inclined to give the new Abbado my vote over the Solti, not least because Abbado at his most electrifying is every bit as exciting as Solti. But, as I say, Solti has the better structural command and that, for some, might be equally decisive.'