Bruckner: Symphony No. 1 in C minor - SACD

“Blomstedt is a revered Brucknerian in some circles and he certainly has the advantage of a superlative orchestra for these live recordings.” International Record Review

“Janowski's Scherzo is very high-energy, his finale, Beethovenian in its urgency, a fraught but ultimately victorious journey with excellent trumpets and timpani at the end...I like Janowski's Bruckner, its basic honesty and refusal to superimpose 'personality' over the composer's own...Janowski's consistency is ample reason to recommend his version.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2012

“Here is a Bruckner conductor who understands where the music is going and the contextual significance of detail. Young seems at one with Bruckner's sound world, how the music breathes and how to balance weighty brass without letting them overwhelm the rest of the orchestra...What I like most about this performance...is its mixture of drama and warmth, its sense of journeying through a sizeable, open landscape” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2011

“Marcus Bosch's First with the Aachen Symphony...returns us to the kind of weighty approach already well known from various feted Brucknerians of yore, though without recourse to mannerism....He cues a propulsive Scherzo and his finale is particularly imposing: the quasi-fugal writing from 7'2'' builds up a good head of steam and the closing pages are very exciting.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2012

“What a wonderful Symphony No. 1 this is...Marcus Bosch and his Aachen forces tap the dynamic of the work with a sure understanding of its power and beauty. Tempos are brisk but sufficiently flexible for the first movement's main march-theme to move purposefully without being rigid...this is distinctive and impressive early twenty-first-century Bruckner to put me on the track of previous releases.” International Record Review, May 2012