Search - Anton Bruckner, Jesús López-Cobos, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra :: Bruckner: Symphony No. 7

Bruckner 7--From The Banks Of The Ohio

Erik North | San Gabriel, CA USA | 01/26/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Though they are still not performed anywhere as frequently as those of Mahler, Brahms, or Beethoven, primarily because they are so large in scope and often very lengthy, the symphonies of Anton Bruckner are still far more popular than they were just fifty or sixty years ago. It has largely been a struggle for audiences to understand them, in large part because of Bruckner's application of the brass to mimic the church cathedral organs that he studied on.



Those large brass chorales are still evident on his Symphony No. 7, in the unusual key of E Major, but they are augmented by highly inventive string writing, including the shimmering opening passages that were as much a hallmark of Bruckner's symphonic style as the brass writing. This work runs relatively short for Bruckner, at 67 minutes, but the bulk of the work is concentrated in the first two movements, which take up two-thirds of that time; while the scherzo has the feel of Wagner's "Flying Dutchman."



There have been more than a few recordings of this work (sometimes sub-titled the "Lyric", for whatever reason), and by experts (Karajan; Haitink; Jochum, etc.), but this 1989 Telarc recording by Jesus Lopez-Cobos and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra holds up just fine under such magnificent company. Lopez-Cobos definitely knows his way around the vast soundscape of the Bruckner 7th, and the Cincinnati Symphony, one of the most underrated orchestras in America, if not the world at large, is more than up to the challenge. This is a welcome addition to what has, in just the last few decades, become an incredibly crowded but diverse field of Bruckner recordings."