The latest in Reference Recordings’ Pittsburgh Live! series with Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra features two works: the monumental Symphony No. 7 in E major by Bruckner and a PSO commissioned work celebrating the 60th birthday of Honeck, Resurrexit, by American composer Mason Bates.
This is the third symphony by Bruckner recorded by the PSO under Honeck, the other two being the Fourth (https://culturespotla.com/cd-review-bruckners-4th-from-manfred-honeck-and-pittsburgh-symphony/) and the Ninth (https://culturespotla.com/cd-review-manfred-honeck-conducts-the-pso-in-bruckners-ninth-symphony/).
This recording of the Seventh Symphony comes almost to the month of the 200th anniversary of Bruckner’s birth in September of 1824. This year has already seen and will continue to see many orchestras celebrating the anniversary by programming the Bruckner symphonies.
As on his other recordings, Honeck takes, at times, a literal interpretation of the composer’s intentions as written in the score, and, at other times, Honeck imposes his own interpretation based on historical records and writings by the composer and his contemporaries as well as the music itself. As on all his recordings, Honeck describes in the liner notes in great detail what he asks the musicians to do in each movement to realize his vision of Bruckner’s masterpiece with time stamps so that listeners can hear for themselves.
With the mind-blowing sound produced by the Soundmirror engineers for Reference Recordings, Honeck’s Bruckner shimmers and shines and broods and excites, all at the appropriate times. Honeck is a master at getting the orchestra to play barely audibly, and he emphasizes the crescendos, so many of which are found in Bruckner symphonies, by first lowering the volume so that the crescendos have maximum effect.
The result is a fresh, and often refreshing and exciting, rendition of this popular work.
Resurrexit, an 11-minute symphonic poem based loosely on the Resurrection, opens with a Straussian beginning right of out Salome and, in the vein of Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia, is evocative of the Middle East with, as Bates described it in his liner notes, “exotic modes and sonorities,” before building gradually to a soaring climax. The orchestration is scintillating, using some exotic instruments, and the composition exudes mystery throughout.
The PSO is in top form on this recording, as always, and shows why they are one of the best orchestras in the nation.
—Henry Schlinger, Culture Spot LA
The CD is available now at Reference Recordings’ website:https://referencerecordings.com/recording/bruckner-symphony-no-7-bates-resurrexit/