Customer Reviews

Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 - Esa-Pekka Salonen

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The LA Philharmoic and Salonen have become one of my favorite choices when looking for CD's. The playing on this disc is absolutely superb, thanks to the LAPO's world-class musicians. Salonen's interpretation is both natural and captivating. However, there are many moments which lack the power they should have and I believe this is due to the recording quality. Salonen's recording of Mahler 3 with the LAPO was far more resonant and had more presence than on this disc. Here the whole orchestra seems distant for some reason. Nevertheless, this disc is certainly worth buying simply for the quality of playing.

Salonen here gives us an etherial, tempered, yet majestic Bruckner that is refreshing and revealing. He does this magnificent and often misunderstood and underappreciated composer justice, by offering a reading that has the mystic vision, blazing revelations, and sinister roarings WITHOUT the often overdone and self-indulgent excesses that entrap many fine conductors. Although it may not topple Boehm, Karajan, or Chailly's top-ranking performances, it certainly can stand beside them as a totally committed and individual effort. This Fourth may well appeal to non-Brucknerians in that the magnificent structure and intricate lines come to the forefront, amazingly without sacrificing grandeur or power. Although not in the league of Berlin, Vienna, or the Concertgebouw, the LA Symphony plays convincingly and consistently fine to merit a whole-hearted recommendation. As a devoted Brucknerian with 5 recordings of this work in my library, I still have no regrets getting this one.

This review compares the Salonen recording against the Tintner Naxos recording. Bear with me a moment as I start this comparison with a gripe about the cover art on the Sony CD, which features glamorous closeups of Salonen, some of which show him either trying to look angelic and profound or else trying to look like opera/pop superstar Andrea Bocelli, who at least has an excuse for posing with closed eyes (Mr. Bocelli is blind). The Naxos CD by comparison is a model of taste and functionality (it is much easier to tell at a glance what the heck you are looking at when you come across this one in the CD rack, that's for sure).

I did not purchase these two CDs at the same time. I first picked up the Salonen version, and when I listened to it the first few times, I thought it was nicely recorded, nicely played, but lacking something. It was rather boring, actually. I much preferred my old favorite Chailly/Concertgebouw recording on London.

When I finally picked up the Tintner, my first reaction was, "now, this is more like it." Tintner took the opening movement quite slowly, but he seemed to have everything thought out in such a way that the music always seemed fresh and exciting. The orchestra did not seem quite as polished as the LA Philharmonic, and the recording seemed not quite as refined, but the end result just seemed to be a better rendition of what I would suppose Bruckner's musical intentions to be.

Just for fun, I decided to do my final comparison of the two versions in a "blind" fashion. I stuck the two disks in two players and switched back and forth between them. On the piece of paper I had in front of me to write comments upon, I marked off columns for "A" and "B."

As I listened, I began to take notes. I noted that in recording A for example, the sound of the horns--in terms of both sound quality and musical phrasing--seemed much more rustic and atmospheric, while the bass in recording B seemed a bit firmer, and the overall sound quality seemed a bit more refined.

One of the fascinating puzzles growing out of this comparative process was that it was hard to decide about recording B whether the refined sound made the orchestra sound more refined, or whether it was rather the more refined sound of the orchestra that made the engineering seem more refined. Chew on that one for a while...

I also noted that the violins in recording A were spread across the stage, but in recording B they seemed relegated to the left side. I preferred the resulting sound of the old-fashioned arrangement of violins in A, which seemed to fill out the "sound picture" nicely.

Overall, recording A just seemed to offer a more vivid and more convincing musical interpretation of Bruckner. Although I thought recording B was a very good recording, I found myself more entertained and delighted by A, and it seemed to me that A presented a much more convincing Bruckner performance. Recording B was pleasant, but it wasn't quite Bruckner. It is recording A, then, that became my pick from this comparison.

Yes, I of course had realized after a minute or two of listening--not even that long, probably--that recording A had to be the Tintner recording, because of what I had heard of the two recordings before comparing them in this fashion. (I may have been blind for this comparison, but I was not deaf.) At about ten bucks less than the Sony disk, then, the Naxos is a genuine bargain, and I recommend it highly.

I heard Salonen and the LA Phil perfrom this at Avery Fisher Hall in New York over a year ago, and it was a revelation-- they played the music like they owned it. Salonen's easy going way with the tempi and his way of getting the orchestra to sneak up on climaxes just did it for me. So, this recording was one I looked forward to. Most regretably, Sony seems to have sabotaged the project. The sound is tight, closed in, way under recorded--yes, this can happen with digital recording-- and lacks the sense of space Bruckner demands. There are great moments,. but you have to experience them through a subtle haze. The horn opening disappoints as well, although in general the brass are great in ensemble. I have noticed this stinginess in recorded ambience in other LA Phil recordings on SONY; what's the deal?

Salonen is definitely an icon in the current and coming world of conducting and Classical Music. He has conducted numerous Scandinavian orchestras and made marvellous performances (especially Grieg's Peer Gynt Exceprts), is currently directing the greatest orchestra in the Western US, and is likely to move on to the distinctive Yellow Label (Deustche Grammophon), home of the most prolific conductors (Karajan, Bernstein, Boulez, just to name a few).

This CD featuring Bruckner's "Romantic" symphony is indeed a performance of a rising (or an already risen) star. For an orchestra with a reputation not as notable as... let's say the Vienna Phil or the Berlin Phil, the LA Phil under the conductor's baton is excellent. It gives a pretty driving performance. I never knew after hearing this performance the brass can sound so bold and amazing... especially in the first and the third movements. Good enough to give me goosebumps. Kudos the the strings, woodwinds, and timpani (Mr. Mitch Peters I assume) as well.

Until Salonen hopefully does the Bruckner cycle in the future at DG, this is a great disc whether you're a fan of Salonen, the LA Phil, Sony Classical, or Bruckner in general.

Five stars were it for Salonen and the LA Phil alone, but still some "problems" remain.

Bruckner DEMANDS space, a crisp, even bland approach, room to breathe, and I don't feel this recording can deliver that. As a benchmark here, compare to, say, a typical Bruckner-Karajan recording with the Berlin- or especially the Vienna Philharmonic!

Having said that, the playing here is energetic, almost ferrocious sometimes, and the orchestra really catches fire in movements 3&4. But they are fighting against the awkward opaque acoustics of the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion. Most notably the strings suffer in this environment, and what still worked well for Mahler's horn-oriented 3rd, becomes a drag for the string-heavy Bruckner 4. Record it again, Esa-Pekka, at the new Walt Disney Hall.

Overall, by no means a bad cd, but the acoustics of the Pavillion are less than helpful here.

This recording is another example of why the LA Philharmonic has never established any kind of presence on recording. Technically, it simply isn't very good compared to the other offerings from the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, etc. etc. In the area of the standard repertoire, the recorded competition from Eastern and European orchestras is fierce and nothing less than a blemish-free digitally transparent recording will do. I would recommend the recording by Claudio Abaddo and the Vienna Philharmonic if you can still get it. Their performance is both effortless and ethereal. Otherwise, the older recording by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra still sounds great and as always Ormandy makes this serious music seem understandable and accessible to anybody.

The symphonies of Anton Bruckner are not nearly as well known on the classical music stage as those of Bruckner's protege Gustav Mahler. The reasons are that Bruckner's symphonies tend to be extremely large in size and scope and they also happen to be very long. The Fourth, known as the "Romantic", is an example of this musical "edifice complex", running seventy minutes, but it is also the composer's most well-known symphony.

It is given the appropriate large-scale treatment on this recording by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under its current music director Esa-Pekka Salonen. Starting with the familiar string tremelos (a feature Bruckner often borrowed from the opening of the Beethoven Ninth) and horn calls, the symphony is one of vastness and bigness, a virtual Wall of Sound. The celebrated scherzo is extraordinary, and the orchestra's recording of the whole piece verges on almost explosive violence (Footnote: this is actually the second time this orchestra has recorded Bruckner 4; the first was in 1966 under Zubin Mehta [this recording, to my knowledge, has never been available on CD]).

The still-young Salonen gets the most out of the L.A. Philharmonic, and this recording certainly challenges the justifiably acclaimed 1973 recording by Karl Bohm and the Vienna Philharmonic. This is a must-have recording for those who really are into large-scale symphonic works.

Having enjoyed the elation of Salonen's Bruckner #4 in concert hall and on this recording I find it difficult to see why so many listeners fault the product because of the recording technic. Put this disc on your CD player in your car and drive into the simple but spiritually rich mountain roamings that Bruckner describes and I think you'll bask in the effervesence of Salonen and Hendricks and the LA Phil and forgive the technicalities of a recording engineer!

Salonen seems to want to start a trend by not making Bruckner sound too thick, and thus remove its glory. Bad idea.