Octo_Russ

Bruckner - Symphony 5 [Solti-Chicago Symphony Orchestra] 

Today i went out for a long 4 hour walk, taking a small stack of discs with me, and i played some great discs, including this gem, Bruckner's Fifth still remains somewhat unknown to me, each Bruckner movement can seem like another until you get to know them really well, i first played this disc back in 2008, and i went over the park to write in my Journal and listen to this disc, and i was truly stunned by Solti's interpretation, i had a great experience with these discs [11th September 2011]. 

Georg Solti is Hungarian [1912-1997], he recorded this work in 1980, even though the Fifth can fit on one disc [just under 80 minutes here], Decca have issued this as a double disc fatbox set, the Schoenberg Variations are very welcome, this is a re-issue in the Jubilee series, a small picture of Solti, with his name / Orchestra sideways, the lettering is nicely placed, in a sea of sand coloured orange / yellow, nice colour scheme, it's good to have the individual movement timings on the back, though the Schoenberg Variations are only one whole track, but i created my own timings for them.

The start / stop, loud / soft of the first movement is great, but surprisingly it was the last movement that i found so architecturally cogent, it's the longest movement here, lasting nearly 24 minutes, the movement begins in exactly the same way as the opening first does [0:00-0:45], this is ingenious, it brings back wonderful memories of the opening, and it somehow circles the Symphony into a whole, a revolutionary idea that really hits home, but it soon changes into unique new material, again it's a stop /start movement, chopping and changing from one theme to another, at first maybe disconcerting as it upends the flow of things, but as the themes revolve around and around, you can see how they meld together, i love the sad oboe solo near the beginning [1:20-1:40], and out of nowhere there's this loud angry episode [5:35-6:25], busy and frantic strings, with loud and boisterous brass outbursts, now that's really thrilling and satisfying, and of course Bruckner is never complete without one of his magisterial brass fanfares [7:04-8:15] each brass fanfare is followed by a gentle echo by the strings, now that's so superb, so satisfying, and the last fanfare subsides into the most gentlest and sweetest of string melodies [8:14-9:03], reminds me of a Dvorak Tone Poem in places, i love the way Bruckner / Solti builds things up and up over the next five minutes or so, as a sort of huge fugue, using timpani expertly, and i admit that this central section doesn't have quite so many memorable moments to talk about, but it's not 'filler', Bruckner's music is still superb, and now some themes all come together, especially a recurrence of the loud angry episode [17:55-18:46], with busy strings / brass outbursts, but now it's coupled with more complexity, mainly from the woodwind, about four minutes from the end you can start to hear Bruckner starting to tie the ends of the strands together, and of course the glorious moment of absolute brass glory arrives [21:56-23:27], getting louder and more glorious, which takes us almost to the end, but Bruckner decides to give us a drumroll finale [23:27-23:40], and of course i'm left gobsmacked at Bruckner's genius, he really delivers, and i'm loving this Symphony more and more. 

Here's Herbert Blomstedt conducting the fourth movement on YouTube.