Three of our orchestra's serenades are available on CD. And three more as concert recordings.
Bruckner's works are the "perfect way" to experience the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Paavo Järvi once said in an interview: "Bruckner's music is very challenging for the whole orchestra. It is important to have a good architecture that really shows the quality of the orchestra and the individual registers."
What he means by this has been demonstrated several times over the past two years - and Bruckner's 200th birthday is the perfect occasion to remember this once again. Three of his symphonies have been released on CD: The Seventh was honoured with the Diapason d'Or April 2023, the Eighth won the International Classical Musical Award as the "best symphonic recording of 2024". And the Ninth is now also available, which has already met with an enthusiastic response. Paavo Järvi's interpretation is honest, without frills, with bite, praised "Rondo Magazine": "This is how late-romantic, knowledgeable, enlightened conducting works - if you can do it."
The Bruckner tradition at the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich goes back well over a hundred years. None other than Richard Strauss brought a Bruckner symphony to the Grosser Tonhalle for the first time in 1903, number three. In the years that followed, Volkmar Andreae gave the Zurich premieres of several more Bruckner symphonies; since then, these works have been part of the orchestra's core repertoire - although the interpretations have undoubtedly changed over the decades.
Much has happened with regard to these works in recent years in particular. "If Bruckner's music has been repeatedly dismissed as 'static' in the past, it's done an injustice," says Paavo Järvi, "because that's primarily a problem of interpretation". It's about "creating enough momentum for an inner world, an inner dialogue. Then works don't become tedious."
In other words: Bruckner's symphonies are a fulfilling way to spend time. And if you don't just want to hear the orchestra and Paavo Järvi, but also see them, you have the opportunity to do so in three concert recordings: The third and sixth symphonies were recorded in Zurich, the ninth at a guest performance in Bonn.
And soon there will be more Bruckner: Paavo Järvi will conduct the Symphony No. 1 on September 25 and 27.
Translated with DeepL
