[SACD-R][OF] Bruckner: Symphony No.7 (Paavo Jarvi & Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra) - 2008 (Classical/Orchestral)

Review by: David Hurwitz www.classicstoday.com
Artistic Quality: 7
Sound Quality: 8
Bruckner recordings are still coming fast and furious (that is, the rate of release, not tempo of performance necessarily). Paavo Järvi clearly has a vision about how he wants the music to sound. Just listen to something as simple as his handling of the tremolos beneath the symphony’s opening theme. However, these little touches don’t quite add up to a coherent listening experience. This is most obvious in the outer movements, where Järvi sectionalizes each thematic group to the point where the music becomes a random assemblage of unrelated sound-blocks. And let’s face it, if there’s anything Bruckner doesn’t need it’s to sound even more discontinuous than the music already is. Just check out the opening two subjects as compared with the dance-like third theme, here surely taken too quickly given the context. Then listen to how Järvi slows down for the coda, turning it into a totally separate episode. All of this can be handled with much more subtlety, as in the two listed reference recordings.
The same lack of flow typifies the finale. Why such heaviness at those brassy eruptions of the main theme in the development section? The scherzo and adagio, though, don’t present anything like the same interpretive challenges. Järvi includes the percussion at the climax of the latter, but the brass playing is oddly unbalanced (or overly blended, depending on your perspective), with curiously reticent trumpets. This is a pity: they have the tune and we should hear them.
The SACD multichannel sonics are good, but not great by any measure. At climaxes the sound may strike you as somewhat harsh at the upper end, but less than ideally clear at the same time. In short, this isn’t quite a fully formed interpretation from a conductor with enough ideas to make us want to hear what he may have to say in this music on further reflection. But that’s a matter for the future.
Reviewed by Christian Hoskins http://classicalsource.com
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Although 2009 marks the bicentenary of the death of Joseph Haydn, record companies seem more interested in documenting the output of another Austrian symphonist, Anton Bruckner. Many conductors are currently working their way through Bruckner’s symphonic canon, including Sir Roger Norrington, Jaap van Zweden, Simone Young, Ivor Bolton, Marek Janowski, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Marcus Bosch, and Paavo Järvi. Given the surfeit of recordings, new ones need to be exceptional in both interpretation and recording quality. Paavo Järvi's account of the Seventh, deeply felt and superbly executed, scores highly on both counts. Järvi's tempo for the symphony’s sweeping opening statement is slow but marvellously sustained, a sense of yearning and ecstasy communicated through luminous playing and judicious phrasing. Similar qualities inform the rest of the movement, with clarity and expressiveness to the fore and a sense of line maintained throughout, despite some unmarked ritardandos on the approach to transitions. The lead into the coda is wonderfully prepared, although Järvi’s subsequent disregard for Bruckner's instruction "nach und nach etwas schneller" (gradually somewhat faster) results in a slight dissipation of tension towards the close. The Adagio is given a performance of profundity, concentration and purpose. Järvi builds the movement's main climax with exemplary skill, accepting the cymbal-crash and triangle-roll from the Nowak edition of the score, and concluding with a deeply moving account of the coda. The orchestral response here is superb, the horns overwhelming in expression of grief, followed by rapt playing from the violins and haunting solos from flute, oboe and clarinet. The concluding passage for the horns and Wagner tubas is effected with breathtaking eloquence. Although Nowak's edition call for seven pizzicatos on cellos and double basses Järvi follows common practice in performing only four, as indicated in the earlier Haas edition. Rugged power and clear articulation characterise the performance of the scherzo, while the all-too-brief trio is imbued with warmth and poetry. The finale is vibrant and characterful, enlivened by rich and imposing playing from the brass. After such a carefully thought-out interpretation, however, it is disappointing to find Järvi adopting the increasingly-common but inauthentic custom of slowing down for the coda. Where this unhelpful practice originates is not clear. The score (whichever edition is used) indicates a tempo at this point, and early recordings of the symphony by Ormandy (1935), Böhm (1943) and Furtwängler (1949 and 1951) show how the coda benefits from being played as Bruckner intended, as do more-recent performances by Karajan (1975), Wand (1980) and Barenboim (1992). Järvi’s coda, by contrast, is some 30 percent slower than the start of the movement and fails to deliver the knockout conclusion that a faster tempo might have allowed. Still, given the quality of the Adagio, in particular, Paavo Järvi's performance is compelling. The clarity, depth and spaciousness of the sound belie the fact that the symphony was recorded at concerts, the SACD multichannel layer being particularly impressive. The booklet note includes a short essay on the symphony and an interview with Järvi.