Bruckner Symphony No 9
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Anton Bruckner
Label: Philips
Magazine Review Date: 9/1983
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 7337 191
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Symphony No. 9 |
Anton Bruckner, Composer
(Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Anton Bruckner, Composer Bernard Haitink, Conductor |
Author: Richard Osborne
With his awesome silences and towering climaxes, Bruckner is a composer whose music markedly benefits from the silent surfaces and wide dynamic range of a well-balanced digital record. Here we are put clearly and unequivocally mid-stalls in the Concertgebouw for a performance of very considerable impact. My only reservation concerns some marginal weakness of the horns vis-a-vis the all-too-palpable trumpets and trombones; though offsetting this are some unusually powerful, black-edged cello and bass lines. Hearing the performance again, long breathed and rather Karajanesque in the first movement, and hearing it again in a new medium, I'm struck by its having more power and electricity than originally seemed apparent on LP. On the other hand, I'm still aware of a marginal lack of continuity in the first movement, a result, perhaps, of Haitink's interesting shift towards a weightier, more sostenuto way with Bruckner's momentous symphonic periods. I have heard Barenboim, in concert with the LPO, and Karajan, with the BPO, bring still more plasticity of rhythm, phrase, and line to the voyaging opening movement.
To state this, though, is to be hypercritical. The Scherzo, freed here from any mid-movement split, is properly terrific, the Trio glintingly quick in carriage and intent; and in the Adagio Haitink is the complete master of long-term rhythm and line in a way which fully reveals the music's craggy purposes, its clear preoccupation with enterprises of great pitch and movement. As the final climax nears, the grinding dissonances are not judged; everything stands out in the clearest chiaroscuro. The quiet, the power, and the continuity of the Compact Disc suit Bruckner, making this what it should be: a most imposing experience.'
To state this, though, is to be hypercritical. The Scherzo, freed here from any mid-movement split, is properly terrific, the Trio glintingly quick in carriage and intent; and in the Adagio Haitink is the complete master of long-term rhythm and line in a way which fully reveals the music's craggy purposes, its clear preoccupation with enterprises of great pitch and movement. As the final climax nears, the grinding dissonances are not judged; everything stands out in the clearest chiaroscuro. The quiet, the power, and the continuity of the Compact Disc suit Bruckner, making this what it should be: a most imposing experience.'
Bruckner Symphony No 9
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