Archive for Bruckner
Classical Candor Celebrates Our Bruckner Symphony No. 9 Catalog
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…
Honeck and Pittsburgh Symphony Meet High Expectations in Bruckner Symphony No. 9
Fanfare Magazine’s Gavin Dixon reviews Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 recording: “Manfred Honeck’s impressive discography with the Pittsburgh Symphony raises high expectations for this new Bruckner Nine, and it doesn’t disappoint. Honeck has a knack for reinventing core Romantic repertoire, but without moving outside of established performing traditions. … The orchestra deserves equal praise for their performance here. The distinctively American brass sound works wonders in Bruckner, but the…
Culture Spot LA Reviews Bruckner: Symphony No. 9
Henry Schlinger reviews Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 recording for Culture Spot LA: “Manfred Honeck, the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, can apparently read my mind and has been doing so for some time now. He seems to know what I want him and the PSO to record on the spectacular Fresh Series from Reference Recordings. … [Honeck] has a seemingly intuitive knack for pulling back on the…
Revelatory PSO Performances Make Bruckner Symphony No. 9 Fresh Again
The family review site, InfoDad reviews Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 recording and finds it “revelatory”: “Even music that is familiar and has frequently been recorded can sometimes come across as fresh and new when performances are sufficiently revelatory – as is Manfred Honeck’s of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Not since the days of William Steinberg has this orchestra sounded so warm, full, and emotionally evocative…
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on PSO’s Bruckner Symphony No. 9 : “a masterpiece”
Jeremy Reynolds reviews Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s new Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 recording in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “To get right to it, it’s a masterpiece. Music director Manfred Honeck and the orchestra recorded the symphony last year during three live concerts — reviewed here — and again partnered with recording engineers from Soundmirror of Boston. Bruckner’s ninth is a beast. Even in its unfinished, three-movement state, the symphony runs just over an hour. The…
Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 is Now Available Worldwide!
Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Continue to Amaze! Reference Recordings proudly presents this iconic work in a new and definitive interpretation from Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, in superb audiophile sound. This hybrid SACD release was recorded in beautiful and historic Heinz Hall, home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In his deeply personal and scholarly music notes, Maestro Honeck gives us great insight into the history and the musical structure of Bruckner’s final composition,…
The Wall Street Journal Profiles Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 9
The Wall Street Journal has a new review and feature for Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony’s new Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 recording! “Conductor Manfred Honeck has become one of today’s most insightful interpreters of the classics. A regular presence on the world’s most prestigious orchestra podiums, the Austrian maestro has been music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for more than a decade, where he has made valuable additions to its discography. … Their…
Classical Music Sentinel Review for Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 9
Jean-Yves Duperron reviews Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra‘s Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 recording in Classical Music Sentinel: “As if a call from the beyond, the magnificent horns of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra infuse a profound sense of eerie and yet powerful stillness within the opening pages. … this account is highly gripping. … a Bruckner symphony is ‘absolute’ music. You can’t evince a different outcome from a harmonic progression or a sequence of chords. It’s sound…
Classical CD Review Features Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony
“For Reference Recodings, there are SACDs of Strauss symphonic poems, and Dvorák’s Symphony No. 8 coupled with a suite from Janacek’s opera Jenufa. Now we have three more SACDS of live recordings all made in the fine acoustics of Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts. All of these are superlative, virtuoso performances. The Beethoven symphonies are high energy throughout, with a rather frantic but exiting pace for the final two movements of Symphony No.…
Absolute Sound Reviews Bruckner
Andrew Quint with a new review for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 recording on The Absolute Sound: “Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s last project for Reference Recordings garnered a 2015 Grammy nomination for Best Orchestral Recording, so expectations were high for this one, too. Perhaps that’s unfair, as Bruckner makes very different demands on a conductor and orchestra than do Dvorák and Janácek. But this performance of Bruckner’s “Romantic” symphony…
ClassicalEar Gives Four Stars to Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner
The ClassicalEar iPhone Review App has a new review for Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner recording: “Manfred Honeck distils a truly awesome hush and mystery at the outset of this bracingly alive and exceedingly stimulating account of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony (‘The Romantic’), the stunningly eloquent horn solo serving notice that his superb Pittsburgh band can boast players of the highest international calibre. What follows is a reading rich in arresting drama, recreative spark,…
Manfred Honeck and Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner Symphony No. 4 an “Excellent Choice”
Arthur Lintgen reviews Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony’s new Bruckner recording for Fanfare Magazine: “What Honeck does accomplish, perhaps better than any other conductor, is to move the music along and even lighten instrumental textures as in the relaxed and faster second subject of the first movement without detracting in any way from the solemnity of the opening horn call and the power of the massive brass climaxes. In other words, Honeck’s flexible tempos…
Bruckner featured in Australian Hi-Fi
Australian Hi-Fi magazine features a John Sunier review for Manfred Honeck and Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner Symphony No. 4 recording: “Honeck’s score section is the 1878/80 version, to my mind the most solid of the myriad choices available…There have been many fine recordings of this work, but Honeck and the superb Pitssburghians have given us a performance in phenomenal—underline that—surround sound that launches this rendition to the absolute top of the pile. The extraordinary caressing of…
Pizzicato Magazine Features the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Bruckner Recording
Luxembourg based Pizzicato Magazine has high praise for the new Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck Bruckner recording: “Blending modernism and tradition, opulent sound and chamber music like refinement, Manfred Honeck can fully count on the highly motivated Pittsburgh Symphony. The result is a superbly balanced and musically rich performance of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony.” —Alain Steffen, Pizzicato Read the full rave review in German www.pizzicato.lu! Buy Now!
ClassicsToday Says Honeck Has “Done Right” By Bruckner
ClassicsToday critic David Hurwitz says Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony have “Done Right By Bruckner’s Fourth” giving them a 10/10 rating for Artistic Quality: “The most immediately remarkable aspect of the performance is its huge dynamic range, especially from the brass section. Pittsburgh has possibly the best horn section in the world today, not just in its ringing fortissimos, but in its ability to play softly. The strings, too, manage triple-pianos without any loss…