Free download - CD-quality FLAC - Bruckner Sym 7, Albrecht, CzPO

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (A) on June 15, 2020 at 22:34:23

EDIT 2 (6/16) - Geez, I originally left some diacritical marks in from the Wikipedia quote, and our server choked. Here's the restoration (without the diacritical marks!):

Gerd Albrecht recorded six Bruckner symphonies for the Japanese company, Pony Canyon (which later became Exton). The ABruckner.com website is offering Albrecht's recording of the Seventh for free during the month of June, if you're interested (link below). During his brief stint as the CzPO's music director, Albrecht somehow became embroiled in the local Czech politics, as this passage from Wikipedia summarizes:

In 1991, the musicians of the Czech Philharmonic picked Albrecht as its principal conductor, the first non-Czech conductor named to the post, for a tenure scheduled to last seven years beginning in 1994. The orchestra had played a part in protesting the Soviet domination of their country and reorganized as a self-governing entity. The musician's selection of Albrecht effectively meant the replacing of Czech conductor Jiri Belohlavek, who then in 1992 resigned from his position early. Consequently, by the time that he took up the post, the orchestra was already somewhat riven. Albrecht proved effective in improving the Czech Philharmonic's finances and at raising its international profile with foreign tours. He is also acknowledged to have been a musical success, and his recordings with the orchestra included music of Ervin Schulhoff. However, a series of political conflicts led to his early resignation.
In 1994, the Czech Philharmonic was invited to perform at the Vatican in a concert celebrating reconciliation between Roman Catholics and Jews. However, the invitation was to play under the American conductor Gilbert Levine, already known for his close relationship with the Vatican under Pope John Paul II and subsequently for the telecast, Papal Concert to Commemorate the Holocaust. Albrecht vetoed the engagement, ostensibly because the orchestra was too busy, although other speculation on the actual reason for the refusal was that the Vatican did not invite Albrecht.
Czech president Vaclav Havel became involved, telling Albrecht that his actions were damaging the orchestra. The situation steadily deteriorated, with Albrecht painting himself in press interviews as a victim of racism and anti-German feeling and for being expected personally to atone for all past German misdeeds. He also claimed that his phone was bugged. Havel retaliated in the media with his own claims. Albrecht and Belohlavek collaborated for the 100th anniversary concert, each conducting half of it, on January 4, 1996, but Havel was conspicuously absent and members of the orchestra showed their allegiances when the time came for applause. Albrecht resigned from this post a month later asserting that his musical authority had been undermined.

At the time, Fanfare magazine had a couple of critics who were very high on Albrecht's leadership of the Czech Philharmonic, and, IIRC, praised to the skies these Bruckner (and other) recordings made with the orchestra, often with snarky comparisons and comments about the orchestra's previous director, Vaclav Neumann. To hear them tell it, Albrecht whipped the orchestra into shape after years of Neumann's lax leadership. Of course, Neumann didn't always hit the bull's eye with every recording he made (who does?), but IMHO he was a great, great conductor, a bit in the mold of Bruno Walter - so I viewed these Fanfare reviews with suspicion. By chance, I was able to pick up four of the Bruckner symphonies with Albrecht (nos. 4, 7, 8 and 9). At that time, Canyon was doing some beautiful engineering in the CzPO recordings, and Albrecht certainly benefitted from the beautiful sound quality (24 bit master, although the CD itself was of course only 16 bits). (Later, in the hi-rez era, Canyon/Exton seemed to lose their bearings, and their engineering was all over the place for whatever reason.)

Last week, just by chance, I obtained downloads of the symphonies 5 and 6 courtesy of the Google group, "Symphonyshare", and in the course of playing them a couple of days ago, I was struck by how beautiful the playing was and how natural the recordings sounded. I would possibly like the balance in favor of the strings a bit more, but the brass sound is so ample and noble! I haven't heard the Seventh in years now, but I remember all six Albrecht recordings as being very consistent in their "additive-free" sound.

Many years ago on this board, I had occasion to mention Albrecht's bewitching and ravishing recording of the Dvorak Legends, again on Canyon with the CzPO. It made me sorry that the relationship had to end. BTW, if you're interested in other recordings from Albrecht's Bruckner series with the CzPO, the Sixth is available on Qobuz. To the best of my knowledge, all the others are OOP.

https://www.abruckner.com/downloads/downloadofthemonth/June2 (Open in New Window)

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Topic - Free download - CD-quality FLAC - Bruckner Sym 7, Albrecht, CzPO - Chris from Lafayette 22:34:23 06/15/20 (2)

RE: Free download - CD-quality FLAC - Bruckner Sym 7, Albrecht, CzPO - pbarach 17:46:34 06/17/20 (1)

Another interesting thing about Albrecht is that. . . - Chris from Lafayette 19:21:07 06/17/20 (0)

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?

Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
	Remember my Moniker & Password (What's this?) Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:

Message:	(Posts are subject to Content Rules)

Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:	Automagically notify you when someone responds.

To view your new posting or follow-up, click on the RELOAD or REFRESH button on your browser.