Bruckner: Symphony No. 7
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CD Details
Composer: Anton BrucknerConductor: Bernard Haitink
Orchestra: Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-10-09
Music Label: Cso Resound
Soundtracks:
- Symphony No. 7 in E major, WAB 107: 1. Allegro moderato
- Symphony No. 7 in E major, WAB 107: 2. Adagio: Sehr feierlich und sehr langsam
- Symphony No. 7 in E major, WAB 107: 3. Scherzo: Sehr schnell
- Symphony No. 7 in E major, WAB 107: 4. Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht schnell
Music reviews of Bruckner: Symphony No. 7
Music Review: Well-balanced, beautifully played, warm, and appropriately religious
Rating: 5 Stars
I guess I will take this release as an opportunity to stop (at least for now) my "stop the madness" tirades. If record companies want to waste their time and resources duplicating releases, let them. For, when it comes to it, the labels, like any business, are economic animals, driven by consumer spending patterns. And if people are buying these releases, why would the labels stop? For the most part, I think the orchestral label movement is a dangerous trend, because all these orchestras are just going to be releasing recordings of the same works. For example, the Boston Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra have all released recordings of the Mahler Sixth. Both Chicago and Philadelphia have released Shostakovich Fifths. New York, Boston, Cincinnati, and Chicago have all released recordings of Daphnis and Chloe. It is a shame, really, because what will motivate these small orchestras to produce more thought-provoking releases of new music or masterpieces that are not often recorded? Additionally, with so many releases being poured into an already glutted market, it makes the prospect of record buying all the more daunting. At the same time, however, the general quality of the releases and interpretations is high, and if these records help orchestras bring in additional revenue while introducing this music to a new generation of listeners, I fail to see any problem. Furthermore, Haintink, who has traditionally produced great Bruckner, should have the opportunity to reach new audiences, especially when Phillips continues to make it difficult to find his older recordings. And finally, when both the performance and interpretation is as fantastic as presented here, there really seems no reason to complain.
One reason I like this release is that it is nice to hear the Chicago Symphony in this music. Barenboim's Bruckner cycle was with the Berlin Philharmonic and we all remember Solti's cycle with these forces, performances that for all intents and purposes were useless. So, this Seventh with theses forces is special. Special because Bruckner is seemingly tailor-made for this orchestra, which its fantastic brass section. I've never been the biggest fan of this band because I never responded to the steely string sound. However, I've never heard the strings sound as warm as they do here, in the haunting adagio. And when you couple this with just fabulous brass playing, it is a winning combination.
But any Bruckner starts and ends with the conductor, and here Haitink shines, eschewing the stodginess that typifies his Mahler with this same orchestra. Right from the beginning, the warm, sunrise-esque theme sets the beautiful tone for the first movement. Haintink shapes the often disjointed-sounding development quite well while the coda is simply stunning. The large swell is memorizing, supported by a wonderfully prominent huge timpani roll, while the choral conclusion sounds appropriately religious. True, the trumpets don't quite ring out as thrillingly as Gunter Wand's brass in his various recordings for RCA, but conceptually Haintink's perfectly balanced choral sounds like an organ, a quality that made the adagio to his Concertgebouw Mahler Third so special. The scherzo is equally fine because Haintink achieves the near impossible of having total top-to-bottom textural clarity while still having the brass play the living daylights out of their fanfares, although Haintink fails to bring clarity to the mushy lower-string, lower-brass scale passage in the middle of the scherzo proper, but, then again, few do better. Haitink also walks the tightrope in the finale between balletic charm while still providing the necessary weight, bringing an organ-like sheen to the finale chords, bringing this performance to a stunning close.
However, any performance of the Seventh is made by the adagio, and here Haitink shines. Simply put, he shapes the great requiem perfectly, and the Chicago Symphony follows in suit with expert precision with stunning playing from the horns and wagner tubas. The "Percussion Debate" (much like the Scherzo/Adagio debate in the Mahler Sixth) will likely rage on so long as this symphony is played, and while I think Bruckner's first thoughts were correct, so few performances can produce the necessary pedal tones to make the climax sound convincingly heavy. Thus, opting for the percussion, as Haintink does here, really makes the climax sound appropriately cataclysmic.
This is a wonderful Seventh, even for those that have multiple Sevenths or Haintink's earlier performances. It's just wonderful, big, appropriately-religious, but never ponderous. A winner.
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