BRUCKNER Symphony No 2
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Anton Bruckner
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Linn
Magazine Review Date: 04/2014
Media Format: Super Audio CD
Media Runtime: 64
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CKD442
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Symphony No. 2 |
Anton Bruckner, Composer
Anton Bruckner, Composer Royal Academy Soloists Trevor Pinnock, Conductor |
Author: Rob Cowan
The vital question is: does Payne’s transcription pay dividends that are as high for the listener as they are for the players, Bruckner’s language being so securely wedded to the meaty sound of a full orchestra? Not sure, to be honest. But have those pulsing opening semiquavers (here on two violins and viola) ever sounded quite so reminiscent of the opening of Beethoven’s Ninth? The ominous exchanges between cello, trumpet and later the rest of the orchestra – settling down eventually to woodwinds chattering above a timpani drone – hardly compromise on atmosphere. Trevor Pinnock keeps to a very steady tempo, unfolding each paragraph with a sense of inevitability that compensates in structural terms for what it lacks, or for what we might miss, in terms of sonority. And yet he’s never for a moment inflexible.
The fluttering flutes in the development section (set against agitated pizzicatos) are especially effective and so is the tender string phrasing at the start of the slow movement, though the big climax from 9'29" is one point where clarity is less obvious than it might have been (try by way of a comparison Günter Wand and the Cologne RSO – 1877 First Critical Edition, ed Robert Haas, 1938 – at 10'39" into track 2). The Scherzo’s Trio works especially well and there are times in the finale where the music takes flight in a way that I’ve virtually never heard in an orchestral performance (just get that piano). Those passages alone would deem the disc an enjoyable supplement to your existing Bruckner collection. Alban Berg’s colour-conscious arrangement of Strauss’s Wine, Women and Song (where the harmonium plays a very prominent role), lustily played, is both an appropriate and a happily conclusive fill-up.
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