Search - Anton Bruckner, Günter Wand, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra :: Bruckner: Symphony No. 5

A Great Bruckner 5th

Greg Hales | Vacaville, Ca USA | 03/27/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This recording of Bruckner 5, brings super human playing from the BPO. This is the best played Bruckner 5th I have ever heard (yes even better played than their earlier recordings). Listen to the slow movement or the finale ending to hear just 2 examples of incredible playing.Wands insights are just as telling...the music flows very naturally from him and the phrasing is superb. Perhaps his slow movement lack that last insight Karajan brought to the work, but it is clear that Wand understands this music better than most. A teriffic disc."

A very good interpretation and a truly great recorded perfor

D. Jack Elliot | Omaha, Nebraska | 01/31/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As my introduction to the Bruckner Fifth, I listened to three different recordings to compare them: the 1953 reading by Furtwängler and the Vienna Philharmonic, Furtwängler's 1942 recording with the Berlin Philharmonic, and this, Gunther Wand's 1996 live performance with the Berlin Philharmonic.



Wand's album here is really a magnificent acheivement. To begin with, this may be the best recording of an orchestra that I've ever heard. This is demonstration quality audio, to say the least, the Berliners' playing thundering from the speakers with all of its nuances captured in the right balance. The orchestral playing and the recording are so breathtaking, you'd want to hear this disc for them alone.



But Wand's interpretation is just as much of an asset here. His reading of this symphony conveys an astute sense of chapter and paragraph: of the connections between them and of the rise and fall of the dramatic line that runs through them. The real gem here is the reading of the second and third movements. Wand treats them as two parts of the same middle movement, highlighting the strong thematic interrelationships between the Adagio and the Scherzo better than in either of Furtwängler's recordings; this is conducting of real depth and profundity. I also quite enjoyed the first movement here. Where Furtwängler in his '42 Berlin recording saved the real drama for the finale, Wand brings an impressive force and weight to the first movement as well. While it might be argued that this approach doesn't serve the dramatic effect of the entire symphony quite as well, nevertheless it brings an awesome majesty out of the opening movement.



I think Wand delivers a lesser reading than Furtwängler's of '42, in that he's just a bit plodding and muscle-bound. I do mean just a bit, mind you: this is still elegant, refined work. But next to Furtwängler, Wand is just a bit less improvisatory and graceful and a bit more methodical, plodding, workmanlike. It's a narrow margin, to be sure, but it's definitely there, and it shows especially in the finale, where I think the Furtwängler of '42 is twice the reading of Wand's here. Wand's finale is finely wrought, but Furtwängler's is one of the greatest masterpieces of musical interpretation with which I'm familiar.



In sum, I recommend hearing this album and the 1942 Furtwängler (which I've also reviewed here at Amazon). In all the Furtwängler is the better reading, but not by much, and the incredible recorded sound here makes up the difference, to my ears."