Customer Reviews

Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 ~ Harnoncourt

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

 

 

Sometimes interesting things happen when "intense" conductors are paired up with the mellow Vienna Philharmonic. The chemistry of this recorded meeting of the often extreme Nikolaus Harnoncourt with the VPO is amazing. To be sure, this is not your average broadly-paced wade through late Bruckner. Instead, Harnoncourt leads the orchestra through the 7th at lyrically flowing tempos which lets the music sing like in no other performance. That did not surprise me. What did surprise me was how emotional, how warm this performance gets. By restraining the usual luxurious string textures and bloated brass chorales, Harnoncourt has focused his (and the orchestra's) attention on the inner visions of this great score. Textures and gestures simply aren't that important when a performance speaks with such sincerity. This approach may not be for everyone, but for those prepared to see another point of view, it is treasurable. One of Harnoncourt's greatest recordings.

Harnoncourt is achieving some outstanding results with the VPO! Interpretively, Harnoncourt is somewhere between playing the Seventh in the central Bruckner tradition that is part of the VPO's collective consciousness and playing it with a "light" hand (Nicht schleppend!) The lyrical elements are strongly underlined, and the denseness of the musical architecture is never allowed to overwhelm. It is somewhat facetious to call this a brisk reading. Yes, it is quicker than Karajan's version with the VPO, for instance. But nothing is hurried or glossed over, like 'brisk" suggests. Each of the movements flows beautifully, and the slow movement is rivetting. The scherzo breathes more freely than any other version that I have heard. It reminds me of Harnoncourt's remark that one of the keys to conducting Bruckner lies in being able to hear the folk tunes of rural Austria. A pithy, but revealing, observation from a master conductor.
More than anything, this CD is a testament to the supremely fine playing of the VPO. What remains to be said when one hears the Viennese on this form? Outstanding Teldec (live) recording.
Very strongly recommended.

Without a doubt, this is one of the most intriguing interpretations I have heard of Bruckner's 7th Symphony. While some may not regard it as definitive, it is clearly one of the best recorded, best performed versions available. Harnoncourt leads the Vienna Philharmonic in a very passionate, vibrant performance of Bruckner's score. He does an admirable job highlighting the score's dense orchestral textures, obtaining very lush, warm playing from the string sections. Not surprisingly, Harnoncourt opts for fast tempi, yet the performance doesn't sound rushed at all. Instead, he creates a very lyrical interpretation that is a far cry from other, more traditional, interpretations by the likes of Chailly, Masur, and Solti, among others. Clearly Harnoncourt is demonstrating that he is an elegant interpreter of late 19th Century Central European classical music; this performance is just as fine as his late Dvorak symphony recordings with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra or his Brahms symphony cycle with the Berlin Philharmonic. And like those recordings, this one is also blessed with excellent sound quality from Teldec.

I like this recordin of Bruckner 7 a lot. The interpretation is very I would say intelligent. Harnoncourt has many good ideas how to escape the traditional approach - very broad and sustained lines. It is a quite brisk Bruckner 7. I like Karajan and Jochum's recordings very much but this one has its insighs as well. Since there are so many recordings of this symphony I understand why Harnoncourt tries to do something different. And quite convinsingly. The key words here are flexibility and brisk tempos. Even in the second movement which doesn't sound like a funeral march even though that was the intent (requiem for Richard Wagner). Vienna Philharmonic sounds fantastic which helps Harnoncourt's interpretation competes to those of Karajan and Jochum

Insofar as it's possible to be echt Viennese and a maverick at the same time, Harnoncourt fits the bill. This live Bruckner Seventh from 1999 is a full 8 min. faster than Karajan's EMI account from Berlin (60 min. compared to 68 min.). The metronome is a bad critic,they say, but this is often brisk and even breathless Bruckner. The vienna Phil. keeps its full, ruonded tone, and in fact plays as gloriously as one would expect, but Harnoncourt wants to clean the varnish from the orchestra's relaxed traditional style.

I find his approach very successful. As usual for Harnoncourt's Bruckner, there are no stylistic extremes. The lyrical line is allowed to unfold naturally; there is little fiddling with rubato or dynamic contrasts. Yet being plain sounds original in this case, given that Bruckner performances are generally swollen with rhetoric. The urgency with which Harnoncourt keeps the ine moving adds to the 'modern' tone of his itnerpretation. I won't replace Karajan or the live Giulini recording on BBC Legends, but Harnoncourt gets a well-deserved place right next to them. Teldec's concert-hall recording is impressive, although it cannot really capture Bruckner's immense sound world or this orchestra's captivating tone.

Given the excellent versions of Bruckner's 3rd and 5th symphonies by Harnoncourt and the VOP, I was expecting this one to be at the same level. However, I was somewhat dissaopointed. The VPO does not really sound interested here and Harnoncourt seems to just go through the motions. There seems to be little insight or thought. There are many other Brucker 7ths out there better than this one. I prefer Rattle with the CBSO.

I was dissapointed with this recording.
It is an OK recording by itself, but when stacked against the recordings of Celibidache, Giulini, Solti or even Tintner it just pailes in comparison. It just feels lacking in warmth and cohesiveness.

There's one problem with this other-wise fine account of Bruckner's finest symphony. It doesn't have the huge cymbal crash at about the 19 to 21 minute mark of the second movement adagio (depending on the version you're listening to) but basically that's a deal breaker for me because you absolutely must have that or it's anticlimactic. The Penguin Guide gives this a glowing review but I'm seeing that they (at least these days) don't know what their talking about much of the time so take their reviews with a small grain of salt. They've pissed me off over the years because they have never even bothered to review Daniel Barenboim's Bruckner 5th which is an incredibly played and recorded Symphony. They're a bunch of british twits that don't even get around to (especially in their new huge guide) doing reviews on the hottest new releases and reissues, so why even bother to put out the big book if you aren't going to review the new stuff. Harnoncourt is kind of a hit or miss conductor and it's hard to know what to buy from him because of it, but who knows you might like this Bruckner 7th just fine but you won't catch me forking over my hard earned money for it.