The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has several recordings of this music under its belt, including two fine ones from Haitink on (formerly) Philips. This one sucks. It is swift, faceless, lacking in depth, projection, grandeur–in short, all of the things that we usually want to hear in this music. The first movement starts off well enough, but the lyrical second subject has little intensity, and Jansons thinks that rushing the climaxes makes the music more exciting. It doesn’t. The coda is positively jaunty.
The scherzo is unexceptional, unobjectionable, but notably lacking in savagery and bite. Remember Jochum’s cataclysmic Dresden recording (EMI/Warner)? Don’t look for that here. As for the Adagio, at just over twenty minutes this has to be one of the quickest on disc. Again, Jansons basically doubles the speed in those “cosmic sound” climaxes, and for what? If you don’t particularly care for Bruckner, and need to get out of the house to keep an urgent appointment, you may enjoy this performance. But let’s not kid ourselves. It’s a dog. Woof.
