Bruckner

Symphony No. 6 Deutsches Symphonie-orchester Berlin/robin Ticciati

Linn CKD 620 51:30 mins

Bruckner described his Sixth Symphony as his ‘cheekiest’ – which may simply have been because he liked the pun on ‘Sechste’ (sixth) and the adjective ‘keckste’. Certainly, it contains some of his boldest ideas (nothing could be much cheekier than the way the oboe’s keening counter-melody at the start of the deeply moving slow movement is transformed into a positively joyful theme in the finale), and yet few Bruckner lovers would count it among their favourite of his symphonies. Somehow it seems to have all the composer’s characteristic gestures, but little of the breathing-space to allow them to unfold with adequate breadth.

Some conductors – Eugen Jochum with the Dresden Staatskapelle, for instance, or Colin Davis and the LSO – compensate for the music’s unusual concision with excessively slow tempos. Robin Ticciati takes a generally less stern view: in his hands, the lightly-sprung violin rhythm at the Symphony’s beginning assumes a positively dance-like guise, and the finale’s sweeping main melody (unexpectedly set in the minor) has a sweeping urgency that’s appropriately unsettling.

It’s a performance that made me listen to the work with fresh ears, and prompted me to think that I had undervalued it in the past. Misha Donat

PERFORMANCE ★★★★

RECORDING ★★★★

The New York Philharmonic must be able to play these ultra-familiar works almost in their sleep. What impresses above all in these live recordings is how strongly the opposite feeling comes across: state-of-the-art technical finesse and precision (naturally) are allied to an energised freshness of approach that avoids any trace of routine. The result really does convey something of what it must have been like to encounter these truly groundbreaking creations when they were new.

Jaap van Zweden doesn’t pull tempos or dynamics about, gives his orchestra time to play, and has that indefinable gift of getting them to excel. All this combines with superbly clear modern recording (perhaps a touch bass-boomy) to reveal much detail that often doesn’t come forward, particularly in The Rite of Spring: the layer-on-layer crescendo transition out of ‘Auguries of Spring’ is just one such remarkable moment, typical of this cumulative revealing of the work’s magnitude. And the performance of La mer finds an enthralling balance between precision and poetry. Towards the first movement’s close the melody for cor anglais and two solo cellos, against quiet divided strings, is always one of music’s special moments: here it seems quietly to make the planet stop in its tracks. Malcolm Hayes PERFORMANCE ★★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★