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Sinopoli's Best Bruckner

Joseph Vitale | Chicago, IL United States | 04/11/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I decided to pick up this release without any previous sampling on radio or elsewhere and having not read any reviews. I have the same force's previous Bruckner releases and I am an admirer though I don't hold them in any extraordinary place. Indeed I believe Sinopoli's Bruckner Eighth is a tad overrated in some quarters. However I am glad I opted to get this CD because it's excellent on most fronts. First let me say that the Dresden Staatskapelle really are satisfying to listen to. They produce rich and broad sonorities that are ideally suited to carry Bruckner's gothic trusses and guide one through those austere Brucknarian landscapes. Credit must also be given to Sinopoli who has done an admirable job during his tenure in keeping that fabled Dresden sound intact. Often when I listen to their brass section images of Rembrandt's "Man In A Golden Helmut" come to mind...an aged medieval knight in old and tarnished armor that can still intimidate. This particular performance in question is some of Sinopoli's best Bruckner I have heard. It's a live recording though you would not know it with either a very quiet audience or excellent post production work from DG's Oliver Rogalla. The opening of the first movement is a good indicator of Sinopoli's performance as a whole; measured and calculating with a seriousness that dominates the proceedings like I haven't heard previously from this conductor. The episodic nature of this work containing immense brass fortissimos alternating with delicate and almost whimsical string and woodwind passages are all cogently delivered. I only wish Sinopoli would have a little more momentum and impetuousness packaged with his sound picture. The first movement inparticuliar suffered from a sometimes too calculating approach as if it were being governed by a conductor who kept his "thinking cap" on too long. Otherwise it seems unfair to knit-pick for it delivers the goods admirably. The adagio is played with a nobility and nostalgic like feeling that well conveys the music's lonely and quite restlessness. Sinopoli chooses a somewhat mild tempo for the Scherzo not pushing it too hard and allowing adequate breathing space around the soundstage. The highlight of the evening is found in the great last movement where Sinopoli holds things together while simultaneously releasing a majesty and inspiring his players to real nobility. This is one of the most convincing arguments I have heard for the Fifth's last movement. A fourth movement unequalled in Bruckner's oeuvre until the Eighth's final summation was penned some years later. It sounds like an extraordinary tough thing to keep together and Sinopoli never lets go of the concentration that has been articulated from the beginning. In the coda the great final brass chorale is breathtaking in its authority and decisiveness. Here Sinopoli unleashes a power from his Dresden brass players that is simply astonishing. He pays particular credence to the trombones giving a massive weight to the last bars that I have rarely heard since Klemperer. DG's sound will probably not be pleasing to everyone as it's somewhat dense and thick however with a substantial, well-defined bass. All in all, a fine memorial to a conductor who's schooling in archeology and Egyptology seem a fitting background to illuminate the antediluvian like narrative found in Bruckner's music."

As good as it gets

MartinP | Nijmegen, The Netherlands | 03/01/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This recording has been hailed by many as one of the best Bruckner 5s on the market, and quite rightly so. Equally justified is the praise for the recording technique. Even if you're not a Bruckner-fanatic you would do well to check this recording out simply for the quality of the sound. The opening bars alone amply demonstrate it: the prowling pizzicati come through with such uncanny realism that it's almost startling. And none of the airiness, spaciousness and transparancy is lost as the sound expands. In fact, as one reviewer observed, this recording is so detailed that it amounts to the aural equivalent of a study score. If you have a score, just pick any detail in a secondary voice, listen to this record, and you are guaranteed to be able to hear it, even in the most massive tutti's.

I know some people find such 'audiophile' niceties beside the point, but in fact it is this transparancy that provides the marvellous coherence in this recording of what is potentially a fragmentary work, especially in the Finale. Seemingly unrelated passages are woven together because for once we can hear how Bruckner prepares a theme in a secondary voice before it is fully stated, or how echoes of a theme reverberate in the background while a new idea is developed. And of course this is not just a matter of technique; it is mainly the result of Sinopoli's totally committed but clearheaded vision of the work, combined with the matchless playing of the Dresden orchestra. I relished their burnished brass, which is powerful without the aggressiveness or fierceness often associated with ff brass playing, presenting a coherent pciture from the highest trumpet notes to the marvellously effective lowest tuba pedals. Horns are not buried beneath the other brass, as happens too often, and sound glorious as well. Another boon, apart from the magnificent first oboe, is the well-defined presence of the timpani.

Sinopoli refrains from any of the excentricities that have marred too many of his recordings; his realisation of the score is as truthful as the sound recording. Only at the beginning of the Scherzo he is somewhat wayward, starting below the tempo and then speeding up to the required `Schnell`. Maybe this was done in an attempt to underscore the close connection to the Adagio (the opening pages of Scherzo and Adagio are identical, only at different speeds). Uncalled for, but not something to fidget about, given a disc that sets a standard of excellence only very rarely achieved!"

Sinopoli, Dresden, And Bruckner

Erik North | San Gabriel, CA USA | 07/27/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The symphonies of Anton Bruckner are so large in orchestration and often so lengthy that it has taken a very long time for them to have anywhere near as permanent a place in the orchestral repertoire as those of Beethoven, Brahms, or Mahler. Of the nine numbered symphonies Bruckner composed, the Fourth (or "Romantic") is generally agreed to be the most popular. But its immediate successor, the Fifth, composed by Bruckner in 1878, seems to be reaching those heights now too.This symphony highlights the hallmarks of Bruckner's symphonic style--the often grand pronouncements of the brass, mimicking the sounds of grand cathedral organs (Bruckner himself was a church organist); the shimmering string passages (redolent of the opening of the Beethoven Ninth), the vigorous scherzos, and the sometimes violent crescendos. Here, in this 1999 recording made by Deutsche Grammophon, the work is seemlessly performed, under the direction of the late Italian conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli, by the Dresden State Orchestra (Staatskapelle Dresden). The orchestra is one of the most qualified to handle Bruckner's massive symphonies, having recorded the complete set under Eugen Jochum between 1975 and 1982; and while Sinopoli may never have quite been able to reach Jochum's level with Bruckner, he still managed to achieve the best out of the orchestra and the symphony itself. The trombones and the tubas cleverly accentuate the organ-like passages of the score, and the rumbling timpani at the end of the first and fourth movements give the right sonic impact.This is one of the best Bruckner recordings out there, and is highly recommended."