Document

  1997
    July 1997
        Orchestral
                Bruckner Symphony No. 5.

Bruckner (ed. Haas) Symphony No. 5 in B flat. Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Gunter Wand.

RCA Victor Red Seal (Full price) (CD) 09026 68503-2 (77 minutes: DDD). Recorded at performances in the Philharmonie, Berlin on January 12th-14th, 1996.

Bruckner Symphony No. 5 in B flat. Saarbrucken Radio Symphony Orchestra / Stanislaw Skrowaczewski.

Arte Nova Classics (Super budget price) (CD) 74321 53305-2 (73 minutes: DDD).

Selected comparisons:

North German RSO, Wand (3/91) (RCA) RD60361

BPO, Karajan (3/91) (DG) 429 648-2GS9

LPO, Welser-Most (4/95) (EMI) CDC5 55125-2

There is a world of difference between the start of these two performances, between the Berlin Philharmonic’s giant footfalls and the dapper tread of the Saarbrucken RSO players. It is also rather disorientating. In the past, it is Wand who has been the master of the art of turning in great Bruckner performances – lithe, spare-toned, beautifully articulated, after the manner of Rosbaud and Horenstein – with front-rank and not-so-front-rank radio orchestras, where Skrowaczewski has done his best work (his fine Bruckner Fourth with the Halle now on Carlton Classics) in a more traditional context. But now it is Skrowaczewski who has the radio orchestra whilst Wand grapples with the huge, billowing sonorities of the Berlin Philharmonic. Neither really works, interesting as it is to hear Wand with an orchestra other than the North German RSO with whom he recorded a good but, by his standards, not absolutely first-rate Bruckner Fifth in 1989.

The super-budget Saarbrucken performance under Skrowaczewski has excellent things in it, particularly in the two inner movements, and it is beautifully, albeit discreetly, recorded. Where it falls down is in the outer movements where the playing lacks weight, and the performance, cumulatively, lacks stature. With the Berliners, the problems are all the other way round. The playing is astonishingly grand and weighty. The trouble is, neither Wand – nor one suspects, the players themselves – are wholly in control of the monster they have unleashed as it roars and bludgeons its way across Bruckner’s symphonic landscape. Karajan’s Berlin recording, currently available only as part of a nine-disc set, is in a different league to this, principally because, like Wand in Cologne, Hamburg, and with the BBC SO, he had fashioned the sound he intended to use to particular (and, in this symphony, particularly pertinent) interpretative ends. Wand has had neither the time to do this, nor, possibly the freedom in the face of the Berliners’ famously formidable musical ego. Nor has he himself changed much interpretatively. There are the same tempo relations (not all absolutely ideal), and even, at times, some of the same slightly eccentric balances between winds and strings.

For a single-disc recommendation, the Welser-Most on EMI remains a clear first choice.

RO



		There is a world of difference between the start of these two performances, between the Berlin Philharmonic’s giant footfalls and the dapper tread of the Saarbrucken RSO players. It is also rather disorientating. In the past, it is Wand who has been the master of the art of turning in great Bruckner performances – lithe, spare-toned, beautifully articulated, after the manner of Rosbaud and Horenstein – with front-rank and not-so-front-rank radio orchestras, where Skrowaczewski has done his best work (his fine Bruckner Fourth with the Halle now on Carlton Classics) in a more traditional context. But now it is Skrowaczewski who has the radio orchestra whilst Wand grapples with the huge, billowing sonorities of the Berlin Philharmonic. Neither really works, interesting as it is to hear Wand with an orchestra other than the North German RSO with whom he recorded a good but, by his standards, not absolutely first-rate Bruckner Fifth in 1989.



		The super-budget Saarbrucken performance under Skrowaczewski has excellent things in it, particularly in the two inner movements, and it is beautifully, albeit discreetly, recorded. Where it falls down is in the outer movements where the playing lacks weight, and the performance, cumulatively, lacks stature. With the Berliners, the problems are all the other way round. The playing is astonishingly grand and weighty. The trouble is, neither Wand – nor one suspects, the players themselves – are wholly in control of the monster they have unleashed as it roars and bludgeons its way across Bruckner’s symphonic landscape. Karajan’s Berlin recording, currently available only as part of a nine-disc set, is in a different league to this, principally because, like Wand in Cologne, Hamburg, and with the BBC SO, he had fashioned the sound he intended to use to particular (and, in this symphony, particularly pertinent) interpretative ends. Wand has had neither the time to do this, nor, possibly the freedom in the face of the Berliners’ famously formidable musical ego. Nor has he himself changed much interpretatively. There are the same tempo relations (not all absolutely ideal), and even, at times, some of the same slightly eccentric balances between winds and strings.



		For a single-disc recommendation, the Welser-Most on EMI remains a clear first choice.