“Anton Bruckner”, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and Paavo Järvi

The dazzling concert by OM and Yannick Nézet-Séguin made us want to look at the two new recordings of the Ninth by Bruckner of two prominent conductors. Absolute disillusionment on the part of Jakub Hrůša in Bamberg (Accentus, ★★), where the music breathes in a constrained and artificial way, as if the conductor wanted to “do something” but got stuck. Paavo Järvi, who has already recorded Bruckner for RCA in Frankfurt, feels the Brucknerian musical flow much more naturally, succeeds in the delicate transitions and takes care of the balances. This is what really appealed to us at the first audition. When we listen to the CD again after Sunday’s concert in Montreal, we need to put things into perspective given the lack of breadth, breath, sonic generosity in the strings and impact on the brass. On this account, we stick with Bernstein (DG), Wand-Berlin (RCA) and Giulini (DG) for the great noble versions, while we will find more complementary ideas in the recent unexpected reading of Poschner (Capriccio).

To watch on video