Bruckner - Symphony 7 [Blomstedt-Staatskapelle Dresden] This is the very first Bruckner disc i bought, it was highly rated in the Penguin guide i believe, and at that time i treated that book like the Bible!, and my first impression was that Bruckner composes cathedral-like Symphonies, almost in blocks of sound, it takes quite a while to delve into him if you're a novice, the other thing i found is that Bruckner is hard to digest, you really can't listen to him that often, you need time to take in what you have heard before listening some more, i've had this disc a long time, i probably listen to it every two years or so, but it's enlightening every time i wheel it out.
Herbert Blomstedt is Swedish, now 73 years old, he recorded this disc in 1980, like i said above, i bought this disc quite some time ago, then i wasn't too concerned about things like the visuals on the booklet / back insert as i am now, it's not a great front shot, for some strange reason my collection of Bruckner Sevenths isn't very large, and it's not a Symphony i have had a truly wonderful affinity with, unlike some of the others [4th & 8th for instance].
In listening to this Symphony today, i must admit that no one movement arose above any other, in fact each movement seemed to fuse into the next, Bruckner can have this tendency if you fall into the trap of listening on auto-pilot, and i guess to a degree this is what happened to me today, however i so much like the first movement, especially the opening [0:00-2:35], it just seems to rise out of the mists, those gentle and ambiguous tremolo violins, that the cellos use as the backdrop for their strong lyrical tune, and i love the way the violins rise and fall in their tremolos, with a gorgeous high climax point [0:47+], in treble as well as in volume, then the violins break out of the background, and sing the main lyrical tune [1:14+], with now the cello's reduced to the tremolo backdrop in a straight swap, it's a lovely two and a half minutes, what a great introduction to a Symphony, about a third of the way through the movement, the solo woodwinds have a section all to themselves [7:22-8:34], where they get to flex their muscles, and not long after the brass rasp away loudly [11:14-11:47] especially toward the end, a coda starts at [17:59], and the last minute or so is very satisfying, from quiet [19:41+], to slowly increasing volume, there's one last fanfare to gloriously de-herald out the movement [19:41-21:04], a nice re-acquaintance for me.
Here's Eugen Jochum conducting the first movement on YouTube.
