Bruckner - Symphony 4 [Wand-Kolner Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester]
The German Conductor Gunter Wand died at the age of 90 in 2002, he waited until he was in his sixties before he started to conduct Bruckner, he recorded this performance when he was 66, Wand is very much a self taught Conductor, very individual, he requires/demands lots of rehearsal time, and painstakingly mulls over every note, in his late years he restricted his repertoire almost exclusively to Bruckner, thus he has become somewhat of a Bruckner specialist, making many recordings of the same symphony.
As you might have guessed from Bruckner, he seemed to love the Horns in the Orchestra, and they always seem to play a prominent part, mainly in fanfares and forte outbursts, again i loved listening to the first movement, the very opening is always inspiring, ghostly horns appearing out of the mists as it were, there's this lovely string melody at [2:58 onwards], which works its way into one of Bruckner's Horn / Brass fanfares, it's the coming and going, rising and falling, back and forth of the pastoral string music, versus the hunting call fanfares on the Horns / Brass which i love about Bruckner.
Again the booklet is a delight, a lovely evening by the river / lake, the late sun on the water, very inspiring indeed.
Here's Claudio Abbado conducting this Symphony on YouTube.
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