Bruckner - Symphony No. 4 - Gunter Wand w/ BPO

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Bruckner - Symphony No. 4 - Gunter Wand w/ BPO

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Bruckner - Symphony No. 4 - Gunter Wand w/ BPO

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Recorded live in concert in January, 1998, the Günter Wand/Berlin Philharmonic Bruckner Fourth was released in Europe that fall. It got a rave review in Gramophone and garnered that magazine's disc of the year award. … Given the number of excellent Bruckner Fourths already in the catalog, including two previous versions from Wand, was this new one worth the wait? The answer is a resounding "Yes!", on all counts. - Jed Distler

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Bruckner - Symphony No. 4 - Gunter Wand w/ BPO

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..there's something about Wand's performance that puts it in a different league from the start. There's the depth and richness of the string sound in the opening tremolo.. A few seconds later the Berlin Philharmonic's principal horn intones the opening phrases so magically and majestically that it's hard to believe one isn't listening to a real voice – a superhuman larynx, not just a contraption of brass and valves. Of course the sound is, to some extent, the orchestra's own, but there is a feeling that the players are giving extra for Wand, something with more inner life: and the unaffected eloquence and shapeliness of the phrasing is all Wand .. To say this version has the humanity and atmospheric subtlety of Böhm combined with the structural wholeness – the sense of form as something alive – of old Haitink (only available as part of a nine-disc set) may seem to be claiming too much: but for me that's the unavoidable verdict. And the sound quality is excellent.