Riccardo Chailly's interpretation of Bruckner's Seventh takes insidious hold of the listener. A first hearing, I warn you, may prove disappointing, perhaps because too many other performances are cluttered in the mind. But play it again, especially on CD (the only version so far to hand on this carrier) when there is no irritating break in the Adagio, and aspects of a deeply-felt Brucknerian experience come increasingly to the fore. The orchestra may not be warmed by the acoustic glow which irradiates Karajan's Berlin Philharmonic on DG, but it makes a splendid sound, with ringing brass, supple woodwind and keen strings. The coda of the Adagio is most beautifully played, the solo flute heard as if in a trance, and the wonderful opening of the whole work rises out of the murmuration of strings with a Parsifal-like grace and ecstasy. Karajan here is more 'inward', Haitink on his 1980 Philips two-LP (and better) Concertgebouw set more consciously reverent.