Description

BRUNO WALTER CONDUCTS THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA. WAGNER: Siegfried Idyll. BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 9 in d. First release of the concert given at Carnegie Hall, 10 February, 1957. Total Time: 67:16 Digital restoration: 2008. [AAD] UPC # 0-17685-121227
BUZZ: Captured here in excellent sound is Walter’s penultimate concert with the Philharmonic before he retired as its Guest Conductor. The Idyll was a work much loved by Walter, and he recorded it in the studio six times during his career. The conductor wrote affectionately of its “fundamental mood of sunny happiness and heartfelt good spirits.” This is an expansive performance, played with fervor and great transparency of detail. Harold Schonberg’s New York Times review says of the Bruckner performance: “Through the years this has been one of Mr.Walter’s specialties… In many respects this is the most interesting of the nine Bruckner symphonies. Its three movements (the composer died before completing the fourth) contain a larger quota of spiked dissonance than the earlier works do; there is a more stringent intellectual discipline and also some rather fascinating allusions in the Adagio to ‘Parsifal‘ and ‘Tristan und Isolde.” Walter used the Orel edition of Bruckner’s original version, with his own changes. This concert has never before been issued in any format; it is released in excellent sound with detailed notes by Mark Kluge, Programme Annotator for the Chicago Symphony.

Sound Clips (MP3):

1. Wagner- Siegfried-Idyll

2. Bruckner- Symphony No. 9. I. Feierlich. Misterioso

3. Bruckner- Symphony No. 9. II. Scherzo- Bewegt, lebhaft – Trio- Schnell

4. III. Adagio- Langsam, feierlich