Favourite Bruckner symphony recordings?

[Petrushka]

I spent £25 on a 2nd hand copy following a recommendation here (from you?)It's simply stunning although the Furty got it by a whisker in my list!

Probably, I never stop banging on about this disc whenever Bruckner 9 is mentioned and somebody at DG or Orfeo or Testament should make it available again pronto. It remains, for me, one of the top Bruckner performances ever recorded and I should mention in passing that I heard it live on Radio 3.

[Beef Oven!]

Out of print so generally £££ online. I got lucky in a French second hand shop.

I checked in the Yellow Pages, but there are no French second hand shops in NE London.

[ahinton]

9 for me has to be BPO / Rattle, despite him not being especially widely regarded as a Bruckner conductor; at least he conducts the whole symphony in what must at least for the time being be the best version thereof in existence. For all that there are some fabulous recorded accounts of the truncated version over the years, I've always found it near impossible to listen to the work in that format and I've threfore largely avoided doing so because the sheer sense of frustration once that disturbing but ultimately sublime third movement concludes is quite simply too much to bear...

[ahinton]

I checked in the Yellow Pages, but there are no French second hand shops in NE London.

Shame!

[cloughie]

I checked in the Yellow Pages, but there are no French second hand shops in NE London.

Have you been on the happy juice following ManU's Cup win?

[vibratoforever]

Two recordings stand out in what is an extensive collection on my shelves. These are recordings of the 5th and the 9th, both with Gunter Wand and the BPO. Some of his live performances with the BBC SO were incredible, but sadly have not appeared on cd.

After the final minutes of the third movement of no. 9 I have no desire for another movement, and have never obtained a "completion"

[P. G. Tipps]

9 for me has to be BPO / Rattle, despite him not being especially widely regarded as a Bruckner conductor; at least he conducts the whole symphony in what must at least for the time being be the best version thereof in existence. For all that there are some fabulous recorded accounts of the truncated version over the years, I've always found it near impossible to listen to the work in that format and I've threfore largely avoided doing so because the sheer sense of frustration once that disturbing but ultimately sublime third movement concludes is quite simply too much to bear...

Rattle actually has a long history concerning the Ninth. I remember attending a concert in Symphony Hall when he conducted the CBSO in the work and that must have been over well over twenty years ago. However, you are right that he has not been noted as an obvious Brucknerian, but during his time in Berlin he seems to have blossomed in this music.

I don't have a sense of 'frustration' at the end of the unfinished Ninth, simply one of moved acceptance and "what if?"! The SPCM 'completion' provides a possible answer to the latter but one is still left wondering whether the composer, if fit both mentally and physically, would have imagined a coda even more impressive and grand.

Still, Rattle's recording does give us a choice ... we can always switch off before the Finale? ... so it would be a good selection if one were forced to select a single disc!

[Alison]

Sir Simon's Brucknerian credentials can be assessed in this evenings live relay of the Eighth.

I fancy it could be quite special.

[Bryn]

Sir Simon's Brucknerian credentials can be assessed in this evenings live relay of the Eighth.

I fancy it could be quite special.

Anyone know which version/edition they (the LSO/Rattle) will be using?

[Alison]

Anyone know which version/edition they (the LSO/Rattle) will be using?

Haas. (Surprising for SS).

[cloughie]

Haas. (Surprising for SS).

He Nowaks his Haas from his Doblinger. He's Schalk as a Oeser.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'll sort-of pass on this, too. Bruckner's too great a composer to single out an individual recording of the Symphonies: I'd have about a dozen nominees for almost each one. EXCEPT, of course, my "first love" - the 1969 Karajan/BPO Ninth: the first Bruckner recording I ever owned, and still one of the very best versions (although I agree that the Live VPO recording achieves the impossible and "betters" it. There's also a video from the same period - IIRC, a performance the following evening?)

Completions? Last year I spent a few weeks with two recordings of the Finale - on its own (to get used to the structure and materials) and in context. To my surprise, it was the NAXOS recording with Johannes Wildner and the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia that I found more convincing than the Rattle/BPO. I know it's an earlier edition of the completion, and I understand Rattle includes subsequent discovered material - but I felt much closer to (my idea of) Bruckner than I did with Rattle.

The James Bond Symphony sounds closer to Bruch than later Bruckner - but it has a lovely slow movement and is well worth hearing: Tintner's NAXOS recording is an excellent bargain. The "Nullte", for all Bruckner's own rejection of it, is a superb work - written after the First (and I prefer it to the Fourth , Barenboim and the Chicago SO is one of his best Bruckner recordings (which is saying something).

[Stanfordian]

These are the first recordings of each work I would reach for:
00. Schaller, Philharmonie Festiva- Profil
0. Schaller, Philharmonie Festiva- Profil
1. Wand, WDR Sinfonieorchester - RCA
2. Wand, WDR Sinfonieorchester - RCA
3. Wand, NDR Sinfonieorchester - Profil
4. Wand, Berlin Philharmonic - RCA
5. Wand, DSO Berlin - Profil
6. Wand, Berlin Philharmonic - RCA
7. Wand, Berlin Philharmonic - RCA
8. Wand, Berlin Philharmonic - RCA
9. Abbado, Lucerne Festival Orchestra - DG

[ahinton]

I don't have a sense of 'frustration' at the end of the unfinished Ninth, simply one of moved acceptance and "what if?"! The SPCM 'completion' provides a possible answer to the latter but one is still left wondering whether the composer, if fit both mentally and physically, would have imagined a coda even more impressive and grand.

I don't have a sense of frustration at the end of the third movement unless I know I'm not about to get the finale! I cannot at all fully accept your "what if?" argument because so very much of that finale was actually written by Bruckner himself. Yes, perhaps Bruckner might indeed have imagined "an even more impressive" Coda to that finale but, unless any of it ever tuirns up (as so much of the remainder of that movement has done over the years) - and this seems most unlikely - the only real "frustration" here will be in that whatever Bruckner had in mind for that Coda rests with him (and I say "had in mind" rather than "might have had in mind" because I am convinced that he had conceived it).

Still, Rattle's recording does give us a choice ... we can always switch off before the Finale? ... so it would be a good selection if one were forced to select a single disc!

Rattle's recording (and indeed others with a completion, for all that these are earlier ones based on less information) gives us far more than that; it gives us a substantial amount of music actually written by Bruckner that no three movement truncation can ever do.

[CallMePaul]

I guess that my favourite Bruckner recording is Klemperer's sixth, far and away superior to any more recent version of this symphony (which deserves far more outings than it gets). However, I only have the LP version, which is marred by a side-break in the slow movement. It has been reissued opn CD but currently only appears to be available in large boxes of Klemperer recordings. It is a pity that Klemperer chose to conduct a heavily-cut version of the eigth.

From the same generatioin I also rate Bruno Walter's ninth highly.