This is the seventh time that Bruckner's Eighth has appeared in my Blog, but the first time for these discs, well the overall feel is that this live performance is somewhat low power, maybe it was an off day for me, maybe i just wasn't in it, but i get the niggly feeling that there's routine about this performance, a going through the motions bent, maybe i should have played it at a louder volume or something, maybe i'll like it more next time i play it, it got better as it went along, yes the first movement was average, but there's still lots and lots to enjoy here.
Nikolaus Harnoncourt is Austrian, he is now 82!, i really didn't think he was that old, he made this recording in 2000, the front cover photo is by Marco Borggreve, nicely laid out, Harnoncourt in black, so that his face stands out, a dark background too, i like the blue colouring of Bruckner, a good job.
Like i said earlier, it took all of the first movement to get me started, and it perked up in the second movement, it was the third where the real poetry came to the fore, the longest movement of all, at over 27 minutes, more than a whole Symphony from some other Composer,
Here's Herbert Von Karajan conducting the third movement Adagio on YouTube.
