In recording studios round the world you can be pretty sure that if it's Monday and there's an R in the month someone somewhere will be recording Bruckner's Seventh Symphony. In Vienna they probably record it on Tuesdays as well. Among the 40 or so recordings currently vying for the collector's attention, Michael Gielen's version with the South-West German RSO is distinctive, though not a front-runner. The Abbado is more formidable.
The Gielen was recorded in 1986 in the studios of South-West German Radio, Baden-Baden—or, more precisely, in the Hans Rosbaud Studio. As old Bruckner hands will know, it was Rosbaud and the South-West German RSO who made a famously successful recording of Bruckner's Seventh in the late 1950s (Vox, 12/59—nla): lean and unselfregarding, classically spare and direct. It is an approach that is more easily transportable than some; in particular, it does not require the special attributes of a bespoke Bruckner band like the Vienna Philharmonic. Melodies breathe easily, transitions stake no territorial claims as they pass by. Rosbaud's Bruckner refreshed the spirits. Gielen's approach is not dissimilar in general outline, but it is much more wayward in specific detail. For example, the slow movement's famous second subject is hopelessly rushed, a reckless 3/4 mm=60, where Rosbaud was mm=48, Karajan (the phrasing wonderfully levitated) 42, Abbado (the phrasing slightly more sober-suited) also 42. Whatever the merits of the Gielen performance there is a slightly beards-and-sandals feel to it; not so much serving the symphony as picketing an interpretative tradition.
Abbado's reading is far more Traditionsgebunden. The Vienna Philharmonic respects this; and the playing, in particular in the great slow movement, is very fine. Whether the performance always breathes as easily as it might, particularly in the outer movements, is another matter. There seems at times to be a secret agenda—Abbado's or Nowak's or a bit of both—that is understated but none the less strongly felt. Moments of careful arrest offset by modest accelerations. In the finale, Abbado's reading is both pointed and (in the A flat chorale subject) broadly sung. The end, too, is strong and incisive, but broader perhaps than the score suggests.
Impressive as all this is, I found myself hankering for something more akin to Rosbaud's unaffected directness—or Karajan's in his third and last recording of the symphony (the others are available on DG, 12/86 and EMI, 6/89), the one made in Vienna in 1989 and issued the following year. This is the most classical of his three recorded accounts, the Vienna Philharmonic playing gracious, light-toned—nimble even—yet wonderfully expressive (the first flute exquisite throughout) and never less than idiomatically Brucknerian. With Abbado we wind our way through the Alpine valleys, glimpsing here and there a larger vista. With Karajan we appear to have clambered to a higher track where the footing is as firm, yet where the views are even more breathtakingly complete.'