This is a new Bruckner Seventh that i played for the first time today, this was the first ever Symphony that i heard from Bruckner, from Bohm on a DG cassette tape, i've always meant to re-acquire that performance, this is only the third time that Bruckner's Seventh has appeared in my Blog, which Blog is dominated by Eighth's and Fourth's it was good to get to know this Symphony again, i forget how really good it actually is, i'm not necessarily a fan of Ozawa, i once heard that he's a poor Conductor, and that's clouded my opinion ever since, i need to formulate my own opinions, on this performance, i think he's rather good.
Seiji Ozawa is Japanese, he'll be 77 in a couple of weeks, he recorded this disc in 2003, it's a live performance, but the audience don't really seem that rapturous at the end, the layout for the visual aspects of this release are fantastic, the front cover photo [by Gabriela Brandenstein] is a superb portrait of Ozawa, showing him with all those lines on his face, dark background, dark shirt, nice use of the arms, and the lettering half on the photo, half on the left hand bar, i love that picture, and the back is also very well laid out.
Well Ozawa is very good in my book, the recording is fantastic, it's a SACD, gold in colour on the playing side, a very smooth listening experience, no bass or treble which trouble me, i find Ozawa has a tendency to be somewhat on the broad side of speeds, and maybe some of the drama is slightly lost because of that, but Ozawa is superb at shading the volume, and on the whole there's a smooth legato to the whole thing, take the opening for example, very quiet tremolo strings, and Ozawa ups the volume so gradually, that there's power left in the tank when a real forte is needed.
The movement i enjoyed the most was the third movement Scherzo, the Symphony is in E Major, but this movement is in the key of A Minor, and it's a nice angry bit of darkness if you will,
Here's Eugen Jochum conducting the third movement on YouTube.
