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collector in the past, where one had to be<br />
satisfied with some haphazard choices in order<br />
to get the complete set. Until receiving this Naxos<br />
boxed set I hadn't experienced the first 3<br />
symphonies, and neither the alternate Adagio to<br />
the 3rd nor the 1878 finale to the 4th. These<br />
"lost" movements are included in the boxed set.<br />
Tintner's reading of Bruckner is all you could<br />
wish for. He holds his own alongside the Jascha<br />
Horenstein and Gunther Wand interpretations in<br />
the massive symphonies 8 and 9. The Royal<br />
Scottish National Orchestra can proudly allow<br />
themselves to be held up to comparison against<br />
any of more than a dozen recordings of the 1880<br />
Haas edition of the 4th, popularly named the<br />
"Romantic". As a musical experience, you<br />
couldn't ask for better.<br />
The 48-page booklet has annotations written<br />
by Georg Tinter, ably edited by his partner Tanya.<br />
The conductor's life-long study of the Bruckner<br />
catalogue allows him. to give quite a scholarly<br />
dissertation of the themes and recapitulations,<br />
which is enlightening considering the vast scale<br />
of the works. Tintner's descriptions are at the<br />
same time easy to read, and you needn't feel<br />
that you require a music degree to understand<br />
what is being said.<br />
Unfortunately the fact ofTintner's authorship<br />
of the notes isn't acknow !edged anywhere in this<br />
booklet. The original Naxos individual Bruckner<br />
releases had these same notes verbatim, and they<br />
DISCOVERIES<br />
were properly accredited there. The other<br />
oversight is in a complete lack of photographs<br />
within the pages of the booklet.<br />
The other aspects of the booklet are commendable:<br />
the typeface is legible and not too tiny,<br />
and sensibly molded into a two-columns-perpage<br />
layout. There is an interesting three-page<br />
chronology of Bruckner's life and associations<br />
in the back pages, following the orchestra and<br />
conductor biographies.<br />
I heartily recommend this set of CDs for anyone<br />
with an interest in Bruckner's work. And as<br />
usual, Naxos gives us first-rate sound on a<br />
budget-priced CD.<br />
John S. Gray<br />
Schoenberg: Gurrelieder<br />
Karita Mattila, Anne Sofie von Otter,<br />
Philip Langridge, Thomas Moser,<br />
Thomas Quasthoff<br />
Various choirs, Berlin Philharmonic; Sir<br />
Simon Rattle<br />
EMI 72435 5730329<br />
for five soloists, a speaker, three male choirs, a<br />
mixed choir, and a greatly augmented orchestra<br />
including 10 horns, 8 flutes, 4 Wagner tubas, 6<br />
timpani, and the usual iron chains.<br />
Gurrelieder, the Songs of Gurre, is a Tristanesque<br />
drama, a narrative song cycle of massive<br />
proportions. It is the ultimate Romantic<br />
expression, opulent, entirely tonal and loaded<br />
with good tunes.<br />
In Part One, Rattle's view of the score may<br />
have some heads shaking because he seems to<br />
be restraining the decibels. In parts Two and<br />
Three, as the drama unfolds, the intensity builds,<br />
climaxing with Sunrise when all is resolved.<br />
Rattle realizes the arch of the work and its poetry,<br />
with exquisite gradations of sound from thoughtful<br />
pauses that seize the listener, from hushed<br />
passages to stunning tuttis.<br />
EMI has conquered the impossible acoustic<br />
of the Berlin's Philharmonie, the orchestra's<br />
home, to produce a stunning recording of<br />
enormous depth and power. Not just volume but<br />
power that you must hear to believe it. The<br />
balances are natural with no spotlighting. I have<br />
heard this orchestra many times in concert and<br />
fewer than a handful of recordings have come<br />
close to their live sound. This is the closest I have<br />
Gurrelieder was the final work Jukka-Pekka<br />
Saraste conducted as music director of The<br />
Toronto Symphony, his Swan Song. The piece heard. Rattle is not simply conducting Gurrehad<br />
been scheduled for an earlier season but was lieder, he is giving us the inside story.<br />
unwisely canceled because management believed<br />
Bruce Surtees<br />
it was too risky for Toronto audiences. It calls<br />
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54 www.thewholenote.com <strong>June</strong> 1 - July 7 <strong>2002</strong>
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