Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mariss Jansons
The 2015 Munich concert year began at the end of January with two highlights: two performances of Bruckner’s Sixth Sympho ny with Mariss Jansons conducting the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The live recording, previously reserved exclusively for subscribers to the orchestra, is now being released on CD by BR-KLASSIK – an outstanding interpretation of one of the most important compositions in the Late Romantic symphonic repertoire. For a long time, Anton Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony (along with his Second) was regarded as something of a ‘poor relation’ in his immense symphonic oeuvre, even though the composer himself had moodily referred to it as his “boldest”. In view of its performance figures and recordings over the decades, this has now changed significantly, and the work has earned itself a permanent place in the repertoire. The Sixth Symphony forms part of the creative process of the two preceding symphonies, the “Romantic” Fourth (1874/1880) and the Fifth (1875), and is now seen as an important preliminary stage in Bruckner’s last great upsurge that followed the composition of the “Te Deum” (the initial sketches of which date from 1881) and culminated in the sublime grandeur of his final symphonies, the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth.
