This is Daniel Barenboim’s third go-around with the Bruckner Symphonies, this time for the digital download-only Peral Music label formed in collaboration with Universal Music. Launching a new label with early Bruckner symphonies is a curious thing (he’s planning a complete cycle), but Barenboim asserts that the Staatskapelle Berlin’s Wagnerian opera tradition brings a “certain freedom in the playing…and with a certain vocal–as opposed to purely instrumental–quality” that will make his new cycle “very different from the other two versions.”
The Staatskapelle Berlin does produce warmer timbres and an overall blended sonority, as opposed to the string prominence of the Berlin Philharmonic, or the Chicago Symphony’s brass-dominant sound. And the Staatskapelle’s lyrical playing contrasts sharply with the teutonic, still Karajan-influenced style of their Berlin neighbors. The result is a softer, gentler Bruckner than what we are accustomed to, which benefits the more serene and bucolic passages–slow movements of Nos. 2 & 3, and the song-like second subjects of all the outer movements.
However this approach exacts a price in the more aggressive passages: blending the brass so fully into the sound smooths away the music’s rough edges and blunts its impact. This is Bruckner after all, and a forward brass presence is part of his sound signature. And it doesn’t help that the recording, made in a highly reverberant acoustic that dampens the high frequencies, tends to impart a rather mushy feel to the performances.
Barenboim’s readings vary little in terms of tempo from his previous efforts, except for Symphony No. 2, which is much quicker and, apparently keeping in the spirit of brevity, shorter, as he for the first time chooses the Nowak edition of the score with its extensive cuts in all four movements. Even so, this is the best performance of the set, as it features an incisiveness and alacrity not found in the earlier versions. No. 3 is pretty much like before, except that both Chicago and Berlin cut a stronger, bolder profile. No. 1 impresses least–Barenboim seems to have fallen out of love with this work, providing little of the energy and dynamic tension of his earlier performances. (The finale’s strange and abrupt shifts of tempo give the impression that Barenboim is trying to keep himself awake.)
Who knows what the rest of this new Bruckner series will be like, but Barenboim’s Chicago cycle, which beautifully melds aggressiveness with lyricism, remains his best effort. However, Symphonies 1 -3 are not individually available for download. The Berlin Philharmonic recordings mostly are, but a better deal is the whole cycle on iTunes for only $25, a little more than you’d pay for this new Peral release.
