Bruckner - Symphony No. 4 - Claudio Abbado, Lucerne Festival Orchestra

Composer(s): Anton BRUCKNER
Conductor: Claudio ABBADO
Orchestra/Ensemble: Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Label: Lucerne Festival
Catalog #: 7 640125 120455
Format: CD (1 Disc)
Time: 64:15 min
SPARS Code: DDD















In recent years, it's been Claudio Abbado's Mahler that has attracted all the attention, but he has always been an outstanding Bruckner interpreter, too. Though he has never conducted a cycle of the symphonies, he has made Bruckner recordings sporadically through his career. This is his second version of the Fourth; the first, with the Vienna Philharmonic, appeared in 1991. But, like so many of Abbado's performances in the past five years, the radiance and transparency of this account, recorded in the Suntory Hall in Tokyo during their residency there back in 2006, lifts it on to another plane altogether. Part of that is undoubtedly down to the orchestra. No one who heard the Lucerne Festival Orchestra's debut at the Proms in 2007 could doubt the quality of the ensemble Abbado has created from the cream of Europe's instrumentalists, or fail to marvel at the freedom he allows them within his over-arching musical ideas. It produces extraordinary results in this Bruckner symphony - perfectly paced, with every climax seeming utterly natural and unforced, and every texture as limpid as possible.