BRUCKNER, A.: Symphony No. 2 (1872 version, ed. W. Carragan) (Complete Symphony Versions Edition, Vol. 12) (ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, M. Poschner)
Capriccio’s Complete Bruckner Symphonies Edition includes all versions of the symphonies either published or to be published under the auspices of the Austrian National Library and the International Bruckner Society in the Neue Anton Bruckner Gesamtausgabe (The New Anton Bruckner Complete Edition). Bruckner’s Second Symphony is rarely heard in its 1877 version, and it has remained virtually unperformed in the 1872 original version. This is not because of any deficiency in Bruckner’s earlier ideas compared with the later alterations. It’s mainly down to habit and convenience since acquiring new parts and re-learning a score with many detailed differences requires significant extra effort and resources. That’s a pity because it is well worth discovering the original rawness of Bruckner’s early masterpiece, something rarely heard since its creation, until now.
Tracklist
Poschner, Markus (Conductor)
Poschner, Markus (Conductor)
Poschner, Markus (Conductor)
Poschner, Markus (Conductor)
Poschner, Markus (Conductor)
An ensemble of international renown, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (ORF Vienna RSO) is a paragon of Viennese orchestral tradition. Known for its exceptional programming, the orchestra combines 19th-century repertoire with contemporary works and rarely performed pieces from other periods.
All ORF Vienna RSO performances are broadcast on the radio, and the orchestra performs in two subscription series in Vienna, in the Musikverein Wien and the Wiener Konzerthaus. In addition, it regularly appears at major festivals in Austria and internationally such as the Salzburg Festival, musikprotokoll im steierischen herbst and Wien Modern. The ORF Vienna RSO enjoys a successful collaboration with the MusikTheater an der Wien, and is also equally at home in the film music genre.
The orchestra regularly tours internationally, and its discography spans a broad range of cross-genre recordings. Under the leadership of its former chief conductors, which include Milan Horvat, Leif Segerstam, Lothar Zagrosek, Pinchas Steinberg, Dennis Russell Davies, Bertrand de Billy and Cornelius Meister, the orchestra has continuously expanded its repertoire and its international reputation. Marin Alsop has served as the orchestra’s chief conductor since 2019.
Since joining the Bruckner Orchestra Linz in 2017 Markus Poschner has garnered much international acclaim for his new and exciting approach to music-making – his Bruckner interpretations are a shining example of this. In 2020 the orchestra and conductor were respectively named Austrian Orchestra and Conductor of the Year. Since winning the German Conductors’ Award in 2004, Poschner has made guest appearances with numerous internationally renowned orchestras, including the Staatskapelle Dresden, Staatskapelle Berlin, Bamberger Symphoniker, Munchner Philharmoniker, Dresdner Philharmonie, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest and NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo. He has also worked at the state opera houses of Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg and Stuttgart, and opera houses in Frankfurt and Zurich.
In 2018, Poschner won a prestigious International Classical Music Award (ICMA) for his recording of the complete Brahms symphonies for Sony Classical with the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, with whom he has served as chief conductor since 2015. More recently, his recording of Offenbach’s Maître Péronilla with the Orchestre National de France won the 2021 German Record Critics’ Award.
Having studied at the conservatory in Munich and served as an assistant of Sir Roger Norrington and Sir Colin Davis, Poschner became first Kapellmeister at Komische Oper Berlin in 2006. From 2007 until 2017 he was the general music director of the Bremer Philharmoniker. He was appointed honorary professor by the University of Bremen in July 2010, and by the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz in 2020. Poschner conducted the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra for the first time in 2019 in a guest performance of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre in Abu Dhabi. In July 2022, he opened the Bayreuth Festival with Tristan und Isolde, conducting the same production at the 2023 festival.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Bruckner’s 200th anniversary: Interview with Markus Poschner on Symphony No. 3 (Gramophone)
Anton Bruckner, born near Linz in 1824, is known chiefly as a symphonist. He trained as a schoolteacher and organist, serving in the second capacity in Linz until moving in 1868 to Vienna to teach harmony, counterpoint and organ at the Vienna Conservatory. His success as a composer was varied in his lifetime, his acceptance hampered by his own diffidence and his scores posing editorial problems because of his readiness to revise what he had written. He was nine years the senior of Brahms, who outlived him by six months. Bruckner continued Austro-German symphonic traditions on a massive scale, his techniques of composition influenced to some extent by his skill as an organist and consequently in formal improvisation.
Orchestral Music
Bruckner completed nine numbered symphonies (10 if the so-called Symphony No 0, ‘Die Nullte’, is included). The best known is probably Symphony No 7, first performed in Leipzig in 1884; the work includes in its scoring four Wagner tubas, instruments that were a newly developed cross between the French horn and tuba. Symphony No 4, ‘Romantic’, has an added programme—a diffident afterthought. All the symphonies, however, form an important element in late-19th-century symphonic repertoire.
Choral Music
Bruckner wrote a number of works for church use, both large and small scale. Among the former are Te Deum, completed in 1884, and various settings of the Mass, including the well-known Mass No 2 in E minor.