With its majestic themes soaring upwards like gothic pillars and its brilliant chorales and fanfares glowing like stained – glass windows, Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 is the most monumental of his orchestral works, a cathedral in sound that grows out of pianissimo murmurs. Coming after the triumphs celebrated by the composer’s Seventh Symphony and Te Deum, the Eighth was considered by Bruckner as the artistic climax of his career.
Cleveland‘s Severance Hall is the venue for this performance. This hall, an eclectic yet elegant mix of Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Classicism, Egyptian Revival and Modernism was inaugurated in 1931 and is still hailed today as one of the world‘s most beautiful concert halls. The Cleveland Orchestra, founded in 1918, began its ascent to the upper ranks of the world‘s ensembles after it moved to Severance Hall in 1931.
BONUS: Pre-concert talk with Dee Perry and Franz Welser-Möst
Sound Format: PCM STEREO, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1
Picture Format: 16:9
DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC
Language: GB (bonus)
Running Time: 95 mins + 17 mins (bonus)
FSK: 0
October 2011
“superior production values, with next to no wandering lenses and visual images that invariably correspond to what we're hearing...As to the performance (which is very well recorded), no one could accuse the Clevelanders of lacking commitment: the strings in particular look and sound intensely involved (rare in Bruckner) and Welser-Most boldly holds the whole unwieldy edifice together.”
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