Reissue CD Reviews
BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 9 in D minor (original version) - Radio Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra/ Günter Wand - Profil
Part of a multi-volume Günter Wand Edition series
Published on September 14, 2005
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BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 9 in D minor (original version) - Radio
Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra/ Günter Wand - Profil PH04058, 58:04 **:
Volume 10 of a Günter Wand-Edition series on this new label, this CD was co-produced with the Southwest German Radio Network, SWR. I’m at a loss to explain why it was issued, because there is a later and much better version with Wand conducting the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra on RCA Red Seal, co-produced with NDR. (60365-2-RC) Both were recorded during live concerts due to Wand’s preference for that. The SWR project dates from l979, is a less exciting performance and even a bit draggy in places though it clocks in at five minutes shorter than the RCA CD. Also, though recorded in a basilica which probably had reverberant acoustics, the dull-sounding recording doesn’t transmit them.
The NDR version dates from l987 and was recorded in Lübeck Cathedral with a magnificent acoustic clearly preserved in the recording. The performance is more dramatic and with greater dynamic range. The capacity audience is so enthralled one wouldn’t know they were present. Wand tended toward the original versions of the Bruckner symphonies. He wanted emancipate them from the structural and orchestrational “fixes” imposed on them over the years and present them as “pure” music (Wand’s adjective). He strongly felt the spiritual dimension of the scores, which he said would shine thru when they were heard as the composer originally conceived them. It’s surprising that with his deep involvement with Bruckner’s symphonies that Wand never conducted any of the Mahler symphonies so often linked with Bruckner.
- John Sunier
Volume 10 of a Günter Wand-Edition series on this new label, this CD was co-produced with the Southwest German Radio Network, SWR. I’m at a loss to explain why it was issued, because there is a later and much better version with Wand conducting the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra on RCA Red Seal, co-produced with NDR. (60365-2-RC) Both were recorded during live concerts due to Wand’s preference for that. The SWR project dates from l979, is a less exciting performance and even a bit draggy in places though it clocks in at five minutes shorter than the RCA CD. Also, though recorded in a basilica which probably had reverberant acoustics, the dull-sounding recording doesn’t transmit them.
The NDR version dates from l987 and was recorded in Lübeck Cathedral with a magnificent acoustic clearly preserved in the recording. The performance is more dramatic and with greater dynamic range. The capacity audience is so enthralled one wouldn’t know they were present. Wand tended toward the original versions of the Bruckner symphonies. He wanted emancipate them from the structural and orchestrational “fixes” imposed on them over the years and present them as “pure” music (Wand’s adjective). He strongly felt the spiritual dimension of the scores, which he said would shine thru when they were heard as the composer originally conceived them. It’s surprising that with his deep involvement with Bruckner’s symphonies that Wand never conducted any of the Mahler symphonies so often linked with Bruckner.
- John Sunier
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