Octo_Russ

Bruckner - Symphony 4 [Salonen-Los Angeles Philharmonic]

A Bruckner Fourth that i'm hearing / trying for the first time, and it sounds a very conventional reading on first listen, very average maybe, i checked out some other versions of Bruckner's Fourth that i have, to compare timings and performance, and of course not too much should be read into this, but it's just a nice exercise, as i feel prompted to talk about the third movement Scherzo, i thought i would list different conductors with their respective timings of this movement, with total time for the Symphony in brackets,

Dohnanyi - 10'02 [63]

Chailly - 10'20 [66]

Barenboim - 10'25 [68]

Harnoncourt - 10'32 [63]

Masur - 10'33 [67]

Wand - 10'35 [64]

Haitink - 10'37 [69]

Salonen - 11'01 [70]

Well Salonen takes the longest, but in essence his timing is not all that extreme, 10% longer than Dohnanyi, and about 10% longer overall in the Symphony than Dohnanyi and Harnoncourt, but it is interesting to note that he does seem to consistently drag that little bit more than the others, in this listening of which i liked very much, he doesn't do anything to either extreme, of bad and sloppy, or of revelatory and eye opening, however it should be remembered that this is a first ever hearing of this disc, and i don't want to set in stone an opinion in just one hour of listening to Salonen / Bruckner.

Esa-Pekka Salonen was born in Finland in 1958 [52 years old], and made this recording in 1997, the booklet / back insert has photography by Mark Hanauer, with Salonen in some monotone grainy but clear shots, i especially like the highlights in the eyes, and these are full face pics, not merely head and shoulders stuff, a mug shot or whatever.

It was the Scherzo third movement that impressed me the most, lasting 11 minutes on this recording, it starts with very quiet tremolo strings [0:00+], which the horns play hunting calls over [0:02+], and the trumpets then copy, but louder [0:09+], it's a Bruckner opening fanfare, and it comes to a head with the horns on forte [0:25+], which the trumpets immediately mirror, and it's this constant 'trumpets copy whatever the horns say' that is the central feature of this movement,

Here's Herbert Blomstedt conducting the third movement Scherzo on YouTube.