COMPOSERS: Bruckner
LABELS: LPO
ALBUM TITLE: Bruckner
WORKS: Symphony No. 4 (Romantic)
PERFORMER: London PO/Klaus Tennstedt
CATALOGUE NO: 14
Bruckner’s Fourth opens magically,
with tremolo strings and then the
exquisite horn call. But it is an
episodic work, and ever more so
as it proceeds; its last movement
hardly has pretensions to coherence,
beautiful lyrical themes alternating
with hob-nail-booted brass rhetoric.
The conductor of the Fourth needs
to decide whether to play it for the
enchantment of the moment, giving
as much intensity as he can to each
episode, as does Wand; or whether
to take the long view, and elicit an
overall structure, so far as that is
possible, as does Tennstedt in this
live performance from 1989.
Tennstedt’s tempos are very broad
in all movements except the third,
the scherzo, with the overall timing
about ten minutes longer than the
average, and five minutes longer
than renowned slowcoaches. I found
that approaching it in very relaxed
mood, and with no sense of urgency,
it was one of the greatest accounts
of the work that I have heard. The
LPO is on magnificent form, the
horns especially covering themselves
in glory the whole way through,
though they are often very exposed.
Tennstedt’s fervent love of every
note transmits itself to the listener,
and when Bruckner does pull things
together in the last minutes the effect
is sublime. Michael Tanner
