Bruckner - Symphony 4 [Harnoncourt-Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra]This was a really enjoyable experience today, there's a certain gentle way with Harnoncourt, he doesn't show you his whole hand, but keeps cards up his sleeve, there's also a degree of understatement about his reading, the thing doesn't immediately grab you by the throat, but there's a slow and sure asphyxiation all the same!, i played this disc in the first month of my Blog [25th January 2010], and it's good that this has come round again for playing.
Nikolaus Harnoncourt is Austrian, now 81 years old, he has recorded most of the later Symphonies of Bruckner on the Teldec and RCA labels, and this recording was made live in 1997, i love the booklet cover, a sharp black and white shot of Harnoncourt [by Marco Borggreve], lovely use of jet black, fantastic shadows on the left side of the face, nice highlights in the eyes, and simple white lettering top and bottom, a really classy cover.
This time i thoroughly enjoyed the first two movements, with surprisingly a new found admiration for the second movement, Harnoncourt is certainly more gentle than most, allowing the composer / music to speak for himself / itself,
Here's Christian Thielemann conducting the second movement on YouTube.
