Continuing his Bruckner series with his Cologne orchestra, the conductor François-Xavier Roth goes back to the composer’s original thoughts on Symphony No 3. Choosing to perform the first, 1873 version of this much-tinkered-with work is not so unusual; what does stand out is the relative lightness of touch which Roth handles it. The recording was made live in the concert hall, yet it feels as clean and controlled as in the studio: the mountaintop moments – when the music seems to reach a destination and the full scale of the orchestra is somehow suddenly laid out underneath you – are beautifully calibrated so that we get the full heft of the brass sound without losing the tender, lyrical possibilities of the quiet strings a minute later.
The start of the second movement has a relaxed simplicity that sounds almost Mozartian, especially given the sparing vibrato of the strings: Roth’s sensibilities as the conductor of the period-instrument ensemble Les Siècles are all over this performance. There’s a breadth to Roth’s interpretation, certainly, but it also feels human-scaled, even intimate, and the hour or so that he and his players take over the music flies by.
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