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RE: Bruckner beckons, but I need some advice...




A follow up comment regarding newer Bruckner symphony boxes: In the stere (2-channel) world I give the highest marks to the Japanese Camerata label and its breathtaking cycle of recordings with the Bruckner Orchestra of Linz, Austria. From a technical standpoint, these are the best engineered and best sounding Bruckner recordings you are likely to hear. Stunning. Interpretation-wise, they range from very good to the very best. Kurt Eichhorn died before he could complete the set -- he conducts 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, and these are all very fine. IMO, Eichhorn's 5 and 9 are as good as anything you will find anywhere. Utterly magnificent. The Camerata set was completed by Martin Sieghart, who does 1, 3, and 4; and Theodor Guschlbauer, who does the D-Minor of 1869 in a recording that was originated from Austrian Radio. The Guschlbauer is good, but not up to the high technical standards that the Japanese recording team from Camerata gave Eichhorn and Sieghart.

The complete Schaller cycle on Profil is both well-performed and well-recorded by the Bavarian Radio. It is noteworthy that Schaller opts for a number of alternative versions of some of the symphonies and symphony movements. Schaller and Profil have released two "supplementary" albums, the new Symphony 9 performance I mentioned above and a stunning two-disc set of the Mass No. 3 in F-Minor and Psalm 146, along with some seldom-heard pipe organ works of Bruckner.

Looking at high-resolution multi-channel Bruckner, the Blomstedt/Leipzig Gewandhaus cycle on Querstand is, as the Germans say, Spitzenklasse! Head of the Class superb and not one less-than-fine performance in the set, captured in natural, smoothly detailed surround sound. Highest recommendation.

I have not been able to warm to the Jankowski cycle on Pentatone SACD. Sorry -- my problem, but it is what it is.

And I cannot comment, other than to bring to the group's attention, the emerging cycle on SACD from Gramola Records of Vienna, which I am engineering in the Basilica Church of St. Florian under the musical direction of the young French maestro Rémy Ballot. So far we have done 8 and 9, already released, and 6 to come out in the next few weeks. I will be in St Florian this August to record 5 -- a very exciting proposition!
John Proffitt


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