Product Overview
Hans Knappertsbusch - Hans Knappertsbusch - The Decca & Westminster Bruckner Recordings (CD 3 TO 4 DISC SET) Newly remastered and gathered under one roof for the first time, the Decca recordings of Hans Knappertsbuschconducting Bruckner: a legendary combination. For record collectors in the 1950s and 60s, the names of Bruckner and Knappertsbusch('Kna') were practically synonymous. At a time when the composer's symphonies were routinely compared to Gothic cathedrals, the rough grandeur, steady pulse and towering climaxes of these readings marked out the conductor as an architect of symphonic majesty. Record companies did not have to work hard to cultivate this image, thanks to Knappertsbusch'scraggy visage, imposing presence on the podium and decades of Wagnerian experience at Bayreuth. At a time when Wagner's Parsifalwas still experienced as a primarily sacred music drama, the major works of Bruckner were likewise understood in semi-sacred terms as concert-hall rites, and who better to pierce their mysteries than Parsifal's pre-eminent interpreter? Knappertsbuschbegan recording Bruckner for Decca in 1954, with the Third. The Fourth and Fifth quickly followed, also from Vienna, and thenthe Eighth arrived as an appendix from Munich, first issued on the Westminster label in 1963. By then the conductor's readings of Romantic repertoire had become less impulsive, evenmore monumental in concept, but still lightened by a natural feeling for the dance rhythms in Bruckner's scherzos and Ländlerthemes. Knappertsbuschpersisted in conducting from editions prepared by Bruckner's pupils, notably the Schalk brothers, with their liberal re-scorings and cuts, to the finales in particular all outlined in a perceptive booklet essay by Antony Hodgson. In the light of recent scholarship and a more nuanced perspective on Bruckner's evolving intentions with the composing and revising of his symphonies, these performances gain a certain, compelling authenticity of their own. No Brucknerian can afford to be without them. "Clearly the preferred recording." High Fidelity, February 1963 (No. 3) "The performance is admirable Definitely a record to add to the library." Gramophone, December 1954 (No. 3) Tracklistings: ANTON BRUCKNER (1824 1896) CD 1 1 4 Symphony No. 3 in D minor CD 2 1 4 Symphony No. 4 in E flat major 'Romantic'- CD 3 1 4 Symphony No. 5 in B flat major 5 Symphony No. 8 in C minor (movement I) CD 4 1 3 Symphony No. 8 in C minor (movements II IV) Wiener Philharmoniker(Nos. 3, 4 & 5) MünchenerPhilharmoniker(No. 8) Hans Knappertsbusch -FIRST INTERNATIONAL CD RELEASE ON DECCA
