Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble & Trevor Pinnock - Bruckner: Symphonie No. 2 - Thu's Audiophile Magazine

I have heard Bruckner's symphonies so often in my life that I know them almost too well. Only with suitable equipment would I hear them again, I told myself and waited. In any event, the equipment I had used during the last couple years just wasn't up to such a grandiose task. Then, after some time, when I finally got the right loudspeakers and the big moment came, it was the records that did not hold up. But, I got lucky and found this series of recordings which allowed me to discover Bruckner all over again.

Special mention

The Schoenberg Society once presented large orchestral works as chamber music adaptions for small private audiences as a kind of protest against the great commercialization of art. This inspired the Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble to do their own chamber orchestra adaption by Anthony Payne of Bruckner's 2nd Symphony. You won't hear the typical mighty, brassy Bruckner sound here, but fine, delicate solo instruments with all their own dynamic nevertheless and of course a pristine high-res recording. This is also like hearing a Bruckner Symphony for the first time all over again. And it is not completely alien for Bruckner as he also wrote chamber music himself like the String Quintet in F major or the Quartet in C minor. The only critique I have about this record is the tempi, which, in my opinion, are too static.