Bruckner: Complete Symphonies [George Tintner] [Naxos: 8501205]

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For five, again, I turn to Jochum, but I think his best available performance is one of his final ones, a live performance with the Concertgebouw Orchestra from 1986 that's on Tahra. The score calls for a pair each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and strings. Alexander Rahbari, Brussels Radio orchestra, (obscure Belgian label whose name I can't recall offhand). Also excellent and cheap. Järvi offers an extremely beautiful performance, responsively played and, most crucially, sensitive to key transitions. There are many subtleties, while the finale’s angrily strutting second set will have your woofers quaking. Incidentally, in Järvi’s Adagio those hymn-like string chords are mightily sonorous and the no-holds-barred climax – with percussion this time – is extremely effective though the ritardando 'in' is perhaps a mite excessive. Karajan/BPO/DG. Tintner/Irish National Orch, Naxos. The much longer original, with scherzo first and adagio second. Interesting, but not quite as structurally coherent.

Nowak edition (1965): this edition still contains residues of the Haas' "mixed version" - among others an error in the trumpet parts at the end of the first movement: [10] I have copies of his Fourth and his Seventh with von Karajan and a splendid version of his Sixth with Klemperer. Adagio: In the fifth section a solo violin was added from bar 150 to bar 164. During the rehearsal, violin soloist Heinz Haunold told: "... the violin solo at that point of the movement effectively prevented the orchestra from rising to the great climax ... but it also contained a fatal trap for the performers of the symphony." [7] [8] Abbado’s reading of the vast first movement is in time but not entirely of it. On occasion the pulse hangs by a thread. Yet it is a thread that never breaks, like a life that has peaks yet to climb before it makes its quietus. This exceptional recording by veteran Austrian conductor Georg Tintner is in a league of its own. It's a beautifully shaped performance, characterfully played and vividly recorded.Wildner’s conviction is immediately apparent in the first movement: Listen as he builds the opening’s two great climaxes with arresting force, then infuses the following lyrical second subject with an ingratiating warmth. Fine as the first movement is, it’s actually the Adagio and Finale that benefit most from Wildner’s probing conducting, as both movements sound with a rare formal coherence married to dramatic impact. As a bonus, the first disc of this double set also includes the composer’s intermediate version (1876) of the Adagio. Now, that's nothing to sneeze at ! (Is this a take-off on the Cologne (Köln) "Gürzenich" Orchestra?) Some of it has to do with the differences between European and American brass instruments. European instruments are constructed in such a way as to "burnish", or take the sharp edges off the sound whereas American instruments usually sound harsher. I read somewhere that to a certain extent the differences in sound is caused by the differences between rotary valved and piston valved instruments. Claudio Abbado, VPO. Decca. I haven't heard his DG remake with the same orchestra, but this is the version I got to know this puzzlingly neglected symphony. But Tintner can also go spectacularly wrong, as with the choice of the original, 1887 version of the Eighth, which ends with a fortissimo climax as opposed to the wonderful and devastating pianissimo ending of the 1890 version. I'm not sure that Tintner really believes that the 1887 version is musically superior (I hope not!). In the liner notes he makes the guarded comment that the original version "shows an almost primitive spontaneity".

Inbal,Frankfurt .Teldec. Excellent performance of the radically different original, with a completely different scherzo instead of the familiar hunting one.How about the Eighth? I am happy with Jochum's and---more recently---Pierre Boulez with the wonderful Vienna Phil. The exposition closes with a quote of the Kyrie of the F minor Mass. The development contains what William Carragan refers to as " fantasies" on the first and second theme groups. [6] The recapitulation begins with the loud secondary theme of the first group before moving into the quieter first theme. Among other cuts between versions, one of note is in the coda of the movement. In the original version the coda is in two phases; a buildup leading to quotations of the first movement and the second theme group of this movement. This leads to the second phase, another buildup leading to the grand peroration in C major that closes the symphony. The first of these phases is cut in the second version, leaving only the final buildup and peroration. No. 6: Staatskapelle Dresden and Eugene Jochum (one of the highlights in this set which is a little uneven in my opinion).

Georg Tintner conducting the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, 1996 (using a pre-publ. Carragan ed.), Naxos He spent a year with the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra (1966–67) and three years with Sadler's Wells Opera (1967–70) before returning to Australia as music director of the West Australian Opera. In 1974, he rejoined the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera, by then known as the Australian Opera. He became music director of the Queensland Theatre Orchestra in 1976. Walter's Fourth is truly in a class by itself, also according to my wife, me and musical friends. There's heart and soul there---and wonderful sound! Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker, studio recording, 1981, Deutsche Grammophon The latest in this line, or so it would seem, is Georg Tintner, well known in New Zealand and in Canada (where he has worked a good deal with the National Youth Orchestra), but scarcely heard of elsewhere.Haas edition (1938): this edition is based on the 1877 version, with, however, some features of the first version. Marek Janowski with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande - Pentatone Classics SACD PTC 5186 448, 2012