So far this year the bicentenary of Bruckner’s birth has produced relatively few recordings to rival the canonical versions of the nine symphonies on disc. But Vladimir Jurowski’s performance of the Seventh Symphony, taken from a concert he conducted in the Berlin Philharmonie just three months ago, might just be that special. It has a natural flow, in which nothing is forced, and nothing over-manicured; there’s never any sense that Jurowski has any agenda other than to present the symphony as it is laid out in the score.
In a work that, by Bruckner standards, has a relatively uncomplicated history of versions, Jurowski opts for the 1944 Haas edition, though he does reinstate some of the percussion that Haas controversially omitted from the climax of the slow movement. He also has the benefit of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, which knows this 19th-century symphonic repertoire as well as any orchestra in the world; it may not have the lustrous reputation of the other great orchestras in the city, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle, but as this performance shows, it is still a very fine band, of international class.
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