Yawn. Okay, the scherzo, taken at a very swift pace, has its moments; but when everything else is just plain boring, does that one burst of energy matter? Marek Janowski’s vision of this piece is unflaggingly reverential in a bad way. He paces the first movement at a general moderato that sounds too quick for the slow introduction and too slow for the ensuing allegro. The development section is particularly flabby, with the strings covering the brass and creating a monochrome texture. The adagio is nearly 19 minutes long, surely too slow even if you don’t accept Bruckner’s own “cut time” tempo indication. Yes, Jochum could sustain that length, but then he understood how to inflect a phrase and keep it alive. As for the finale, well, it has nothing special at all going for it, and as already suggested the brass lack projection. To what extent this is a function of the engineering or Janowski’s interpretive preference is an open question, the answer to which hardly matters. Look elsewhere.
