With Bruckner’s 200th Anniversary celebrations underway, Classical Candor critic Karl Nehring has a double-feature on our two recordings of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 from Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra and Stanisław Skrowaczewski:
“Honeck and his orchestra deliver a powerful performance that indeed offers glimpses both of the divine and of the existential abyss. The recording was pulled together from live performances by the engineering team from Soundmirror, the recording firm that Reference Recordings employs for their Pittsburgh releases. They do fine work. One of my other favorite recordings of this symphony is also on the Reference Recordings (RR-81) and also features the Minnesota Orchestra, this time under the baton of conductor Stanislaw Skrowaczewski (1923-2017). It is an engineering marvel, not quite as dramatic in performance, although a bit more flowing and lyrical overall. It certainly is startling to discover two such highly recommendable recordings of the same piece with the same orchestra on the same relatively small label. In any event, the Honeck release is something special, well worth an audition by faithful Brucknerians. ”
—Karl Nehring, Classical Candor