Decca’s Australian
Eloquence subsidiary is to be
thanked for their tireless re-issuing
of forgotten, out-of-print recordings
from the vaults of Universal Music:
DG, Philips, Decca/London. In doing
so, they occasionally unearth treasures,
sometimes classics, emotional
favorites, or simply recordings
that have been unavailable long enough
to generate some interest and demand.
Just as few recordings
receive universal praise, so, too,
few interpretations have no following
at all. Somebody will always like
one particular album above all. And
surely someone will also like this
one: Solti’s Bruckner Seventh with
the Wiener Philharmoniker (Vienna
Philharmonic Orchestra: VPO) from
1965. In listening to this disc, it
struck me again how it can be just
as difficult, if not more so, to determine
with any precision what makes a performance
unspecial, as it is to pinpoint
the reasons for excellence with another.
Direct comparison usually exacerbates
the felt differences without necessarily
helping to get a firmer grip on the
specific reasons for it.
What remains easily
discernible here, though, is that
somehow swells don’t quite resonate,
that climaxes are not intense and
don’t resolve. Energies, nervous rather
than compelling, seem misapplied in
the wrong directions by margins scarcely
noticeable but strongly palpable.
The Adagio (with cymbal clash)
is reasonably well articulated, while
not as drawn out as later in his Chicago
recording
and performances
- where it, too, is hailed the most
successful of the movements. Some
extraneous noises at the end of that
second movement can be heard when
listening closely, but are not loud
enough to be disturbing. "Disturbing"
would be much too harsh a word for
the very occasional pitch ambiguity
of the woodwinds and brass, but it
contributes to playing that is every
bit of the standard expected from
a very good orchestra in a live performance
- which this, however, isn’t - but
not much more than that.
Those who don’t appreciate
Bruckner in the first place might
reason that the music plods along
for most of the symphony’s duration
because that lies in the nature of
Bruckner’s music, not Solti’s conducting.
It’d be witty enough but it needn’t
be so at all, and recent recordings
of Bruckner’s Seventh make painfully
obvious how a linearity and an arch
can lead from the first to the last
note, and the hour between. Solti
takes about 66 minutes here, which
is insignificantly above average,
unless you include Celibidache
in the count, who distorts the
statistics.
Most notably and
recently there are two live recordings
from veteran Bruckner conductors Bernard
Haitink (May 2007, on the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra’s own CSO Resound
label) and Karl
Böhm (5 April 1977, Audite).
Both bring a gentility to the work
that exudes moving tenderness: elaborate,
reticent and glowing at once in Haitink’s
recording, slightly tighter in the
outer movements with Böhm. Both
Haitink’s CSO and Böhm’s Bavarian
Radio Symphony Orchestra outperform
the VPO, if in different ways. The
CSO appeals with playing that’s anywhere
from luminous to blazing and ever
precise, while the BRSO reveals the
music’s structure beyond the notes,
playing more lively and with more
understanding than the anemic 1965
VPO. Any subsequent VPO recording
of this, including Böhm’s
1976 on DG, is much improved.
The sound of Decca’s
John Culshaw (producer) and Gordon
Perry (engineer) from the Sofiensaal
is good for its time – but that is
also to say that it sounds slightly
aged now. The divided violin sections,
meanwhile are caught in nice - almost
too prominent – contrast ... lovely,
generally, but potentially an issue
when listening with headphones.
In a highly competitive
field – roughly seventy different,
single CD versions are offered on
ArkivMusic,
alone. This one will only appeal to
the Solti enthusiasts. I like Günter
Wand; the Berlin
recording more so than WDR
(box set) or NDR
(DVD) – but apart from the above-mentioned
Haitink and Böhm, favorites are
Karajan
III (VPO, 1989), Jochum
(Dresden),
and – I’m almost embarrassed to admit
– Simon
Rattle/Birmingham (EMI). Good
alternatives to ‘standard’ interpretations
are Herreweghe
(O.d.Champs-Élysées),
and Harnoncourt
(VPO) on the ‘non-cymbal-ic’, fleeting
side – and of course Celibidache
with the Munich Philharmonic for not-thought-to-be-possible
breadth and glory.
Jens F. Laurson
Wiener Philharmoniker/Sir Georg Solti 
