Anton Bruckner - The Mature Symphonies: Symphony 4 [Blu-ray]

poor value
I have not heard this actual disc, but I did catch this concert of Bruckner's 4th. on You Tube. I thought it good but not great.Bruckner can withstand a variety of interpretations, and Barenboim, although fairly slavishly following Furtwangler's approach certainly has legitimate points to make.

My problem with this lies in the price. There are only 70 mins. of music on this disc. Accentus dashed off the last six symphonies with Barenboim and the BRSO in a week or so, from a series of concerts. (One wonders how well they could have been prepared and rehearsed.) This would suggest a certain economy of scale in production costs. Bluray discs hold enormous amounts of data, over four hours of playing time. Why wasn't this whole enterprise put out as a set, on 2 or even 3 discs for $50-60? The C major label has put out many discs with generous content:- Dausgaard with 4 major symphonies, Buchbinder's Beethoven concerto set, Jarvi"s Schumann set(I could go on and on)all at single...

Good, but unmemorable
Daniel Barenboim is invariably full of surprises. Some of his recent work (my focus here is on the DVD medium) is revelatory and sublime: listen to his Mahler Nine and his interpretation of the Chopin piano concerti, to name just two beautiful examples. When it comes to Bruckner, I never was a fervent admirer of his post-Furtwänglerian approach in the past, but remained hopeful that he might have found new vistas recently. At least in this rendition of the Fourth, this is not the case. Upon arrival of Franz Welser-Möst's brand-new Blu-Ray disk of Bruckner's Fourth, I re-visited both Barenboim (whom I found disappointing and therefore initially did not want to review at all) and Christian Thielemann (see my review) for a somewhat oblique comparison: a "straight" comparison is not possible, because Welser-Möst uses a different edition of the score (see my forthcoming review). Thielemann (with the Münchner Philharmoniker, unitel 2009) gives an intense and highly...



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