Heavenly Pair: Bruckner and his Idol. Richard Laing enjoys a feast of sumptuous playing from Andris Nelsons and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, though the service is a little slow
Heavenly Pair: Bruckner and his Idol. Richard Laing enjoys a feast of sumptuous playing from Andris Nelsons and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, though the service is a little slow
Reviews of Bruckner, Symphonies 0–9 and Wagner, Overture (Der fliegende Holländer), Overture (Rienzi), Prelude and Liebestod (Tristan und Isolde), Prelude (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Overture (Tannhäuser), Prelude (Lohengrin), Siegfried Idyll, Siegfried’s Funeral March (Götterdämmerung), Prelude (Parsifal), conducted by Nelsons, Leipzig, 2021 (Deutsche Grammophon, 10 CDs).
March 2024, Volume 18, Number 1, 88–90.
Bruckner’s admiration for Wagner is well known, as is Wagner’s lukewarm opinion of Bruckner, though the older composer thought enough of his Austrian disciple to accept the dedication of his Third Symphony and to have a beer with him. Though no one could confuse the two composers, the influence of Wagner on Bruckner and the occasional similarities in terms of musical language are made particularly clear by clever pairings of works on each disc of this impressive box set.