Bruckner: Symphony No. 6; Gluck: Overture to Iphigenie en Aulide; Humperdinck: Overture to Hansel und Gretel.(Sound Recording Review)

Bruckner: Symphony No. 6; Gluck: Overture to Iphigenie en Aulide; Humperdinck: Overture to Hansel und Gretel. Otto Klemperer, New Philharmonia and Philharmonia Orchestras. EMI 7243 5 62622 2.

Of Bruckner's last six, most-important symphonies, the Sixth is his least performed and least recorded. I suppose there are reasons, most prominent of which is its not sounding much like the rest of the stuff the man wrote. The work is not as big or grand or awe-inspiring or structurally coherent as the Bruckner's other famous symphonies, and it is to Otto Klemperer's credit that he was able to make as much out of it as he did. This 1964 recording is probably the best we'll ever get.

The first movement has always reminded me of the score to some epic movie. Maybe twentieth-century film composers looked to the nineteenth-century Bruckner for ideas. Wouldn't be the first time. Anyway, the second movement Adagio is far more placid, but it hasn't quite the ethereal otherworldly inspiration that marks some of Bruckner's best slow movements. The Scherzo is actually the first point in the symphony that the composer seems himself, it being a restless contrast of grandiose reflections and serene respites and, interestingly, a possible inspiration for the later Scherzos of Mahler. The Finale barely hangs together in other conductor's hands, but Klemperer seems ...