Bruckner in Berlin

On Classical Source there are quite a few reviews of the Berliner Philharmoniker (usually by me), courtesy of the Digital Concert Hall’s live relays. Currently (during the exceptional circumstances of COVID-19) its archive is free of charge and open to all. With much disappointment, I missed the following at the time, but have now caught up. So, if you fancy a superb Bruckner 8 (from 8 November 2019) conducted by Zubin Mehta, don’t hesitate (equally impressive is his Don Quixote/Eroica coupling from a week earlier – both programmes were then toured to Japan) and Herbert Blomstedt’s expansive reading of Bruckner 4 (Romantic Symphony, from 18 January this year) is equally enticing. Note the end of the latter, where Blomstedt, now an ageless 92, even though it’s a loud resplendent conclusion, cues a long and significant silence in its aftermath, which nobody interrupts. It’s a very special moment. And there are many such moments here also, for on 31 March 1992 Sergiu Celibidache returned to the Berlin Phil for an epic Bruckner 7 of mesmerising quality of spiritual beauty and intense expression that requires patient listening but which yields so much illumination and without the conductor losing the music’s thread. It WILL divide opinion. Anyway, it’s on the DCH site in all its glory.