Track Listing

1. Overture: Iphigenie En Aulide - Christoph Willibald Gluck
2. Overture: Hansel Und Gretel - Philharmonia Orchestra
3. I: Maestoso
4. II: Adagio (Molto Solenne)
5. III: Scherzo (Con Moto Moderato) & Trio
6. IV: Finale (Allegro Ma Non Troppo)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20257 in Music
• Released on: 2003-09-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 75 minutes

Customer Reviews

Get this
This is, quite simply, the most satisfying Bruckner 6 available. Wonderful sound and vintage Klemperer interpretation.

25 February 2009. Since writing the above review the remarkable Norrington recording Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 has been issued. This is IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WAY as satisfying as this vintage Klemperer recording. You really need both! But if you can only afford one then this Klemperer performance remains a classic and you will not be disappointed.

The origin of fire
The sound is very good; the performance superb. The Sixth is a strange Symphony, not with the physical ups and downs of the 5th, or the mystical visios of the three last symphonies. In its phantomatic breathing, it is quite the space between the human and the mystical part of Bruckner. Like a stairway.
Some of the typical Klemperer moves (no tempi, slow exposition of the themes) here all converge to display the best of Bruckner: harsh as a cliff, the first theme emerges and we can feel the oscillating environment in the violins and in the winds. Klemperer really creates a Bruckner sound that is far from the brass-timpani-pizzicato strings most conductors reduce it. This is sharp light. Even the Adagio seems not languorous, but inhabitated with an inconcrete and permanent energy. That is the secret of Klemperer's Bruckner: the display of its immense and inner energy.
After listening to this performance, you can understand why fire starts in the stone's mouvement.

Vintage Klemperer, with rough edges
I'm a great fan of Klemperer's recordings, but this one - although usually very highly recommended by Gramophone magazine - does have some disappointments. It's a high-voltage performance, with a strong sense of direction and purpose, and with more fire than many of his recordings. The sound is really excellent for its time, spacious and rich. But there is a roughness in Klemperer's interpretation, and in the playing, which disappoints - some passages are really quite crudely done, some of the transitions are crassly managed, and the ensemble isn't always immaculate. There is also occasionally an unattractively heavy literalness in the playing. Günter Wand's glowing 1988 Hamburg recording is a far better recommendation, and as a supplement you should also track down Furtwängler's recording, which sadly lacks the first movement but is still a treasurable document.