Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-Flat Major, WAB 104 "Romantic" (1886 Version, Ed. L. Nowak) (Live)

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The death of Bernard Haitink in 2021 has hardly slowed the pace of releases from this much-loved and prolific conductor, and valuable new interpretations from his baton continue to appear. This recording of Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 in E flat major, WAB 104 ("Romantic"), was made live in 2012 with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks at the Philharmonie im Gasteig in Munich. The live sound from the radio network's engineers is remarkably clear, and in every way, this is a Bruckner performance in the classic Haitink mold, restrained, accurate in the smallest details, and beautifully shaped. It followed on a live Haitink performance with the London Symphony the previous year (available on the orchestra's LSO Live label), and it is interesting to note the variations in tempo from a conductor doing basically the same thing as he was before; most of the movements are close, but the opening movement is close to a minute faster. The fourth is the only Bruckner symphony with a program, and while Haitink is not the conductor one would choose for heavy programmatic effects, he can be extremely evocative in, say, the scene of the strolling organ musician who entertains the hunters in the Trio of the Scherzo, and the hunting horns at the beginning are properly restrained, not military marching sounds. Haitink is at his best in building up a movement inexorably, and this is why he is admired as a Bruckner conductor. Consider the flawless detail in the beginning of the first movement, proceeding as if ordained from its Beethovenian open fifth. This is wonderful Bruckner and Haitink fans have snapped it up, putting the album on classical best-seller lists in the late summer of 2023.

© James Manheim /TiVo