Morton Feldman: Coptic Light

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com's Best of 1999
Quiet and expansive, Morton Feldman's Coptic Light isn't your typical classical CD. Performed by Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony, these works by the late composer, atmospheric and tension-filled, are ready to erupt at any moment. Classical music that moves at a snail's pace and sounds exciting? You bet. --Jason Verlinde

Amazon.com essential recording
Listening to Morton Feldman's Coptic Light is a powerful undertaking; it's a composition fraught with tension, where wafts of orchestral sound fade in and out with a glacial pace (and power). Piano and Orchestra and Cello and Orchestra are similar works from the contemporary music master--atmospheric (but with plenty of turbulence) and quiet numbers--that are too complex to be considered ambient, yet too minimalist ever to be mistaken as traditional. Truth be told, Feldman was far more... read more

Morton Feldman: Coptic Light

Tracks:

Coptic Light: Coptic Light: Piano and Orchestra
Coptic Light: Coptic Light: Cello and Orchestra
Coptic Light

Amazon.com's Best of 1999

Quiet and expansive, Morton Feldman's Coptic Light isn't your typical classical CD. Performed by Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony, these works by the late composer, atmospheric and tension-filled, are ready to erupt at any moment. Classical music that moves at a snail's pace and sounds exciting? You bet. --Jason Verlinde

Amazon.com essential recording

Listening to Morton Feldman's Coptic Light is a powerful undertaking; it's a composition fraught with tension, where wafts of orchestral sound fade in and out with a glacial pace (and power). Piano and Orchestra and Cello and Orchestra are similar works from the contemporary music master--atmospheric (but with plenty of turbulence) and quiet numbers--that are too complex to be considered ambient, yet too minimalist ever to be mistaken as traditional. Truth be told, Feldman was far more interested in sonic verticality and the perfect cluster of instrument sounds than harmony or rhythm. It's no wonder his music is more often compared to the work of his modern visual-art friends (Mark Rothko, Philip Guston) than his musical ones (Cage, Christian Wolff). Whatever the case, these three shorter pieces (some of Feldman's works can stretch into hours) are glorious sonic landscapes of mystery and light. Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the New World Symphony through these three slow-moving works with plenty of grace and an obvious love for the music (in the liner notes, you can read his lighthearted personal appreciation of Feldman). It's a gripping disc that takes its time in evolving, but is ever so rewarding. --Jason Verlinde

Customer Reviews:

Crystals and Tapestries.......2002-08-17

Feldman is fast becoming an obsession with me. His extremely hieratic sound world challenges the listener to use differing ears to listen, ears that listen to each sound "in the moment" and not impose typical ideas of directionality and development so traditional in music of the west. The three pieces on this album are great introductions to this subtle composer.

Piano and Orchestra is fast becoming my favorite Feldman piece. Written as part of a series of works for instruments and orchestra in the 70's, the work lives from moments to moment, consisting of soft discreet sounds separated by silences. Feldman's ear for instrumental sonority is unmatched. Ear sound is lush...dissonant and yet gorgeous, rather in the manner of Debussy or Messiaen. And the quiet dynamics increase the beauty of each sound. There is a sense of form, a series of chords played over and over by the pianist and echoed by the orchestral pianist create what is a recognizable "theme", is you can call such minimal material a theme. But the best way to listen to this music is to think of it as an object of sound, rather like a crystal with light coming through it. Static on the surface, but infinitely fascinating if you quiet down your own mind and just observe it.

Cello and Orchestra is from the same series, though written earlier. I am less enamoured of this one, though I like it. I'm not sure what leaves me colder in it. Perhaps the sustained nature of the cello makes this piece a little more conventional than Piano and Orchestra, a little more like a concerto. It is nevertheless a beautiful work.

The final work on the CD is Coptic Light. This is a stunning work from Feldman's late period, but with the virtue of being much shorter than most works from this time. (A true performance of Feldman's Second String Quartet would take 4 hours, but even the Kronos would not attempt that. They said they couldn't make it hang together.) Coptic Light, which gets it's name from a style of oriental carpet, is really rather like looking at one of those fascinating designs. Initially you only notice the symmetry in the pattern...as if the pieces was all one unchanging folding out of it's first bars. But a careful listening reveals that each pattern is constantly changing. Motives repeat with rhythmic variations, subtle changes in melodic material, and changes in the vertical arrangement, creating an infinately shifting tapestry. The work is haunting.

The "_____ and Orchestra" series has been recorded on CPO by Hans Zender and the Southwest German Radio Orchestra, so the claim on the recording that these are world premieres is wrong. (The CPO discs may actually be reissues of old Wergo CDs as well, as they were originally recorded in the 70's and have that "Wergo" look.But I may be wrong.) This recording of Piano and Orchestra is longer than the Zender recording and the indications in the score by about 5 minutes, but tempo aside, I'm unable to make a determination between the two versions. I like the way the Zender CD hangs together better, but I like the sound quality and the pianist better on this CD. Tilson Thomas does a wonderful job with this music. On the "Cello and Orchestra" recording Tilson Thomas is faster than Zender, and on this work I clearly prefer the European conductor. There is another available recording of Coptic Light as well, but I don't have it. Despite what one reviewer said here, on the page for that recording, there is alot of carping about the performance and the general consensus is that Tilson Thomas' version is better, so I am loath to invest the money to find out for myself, not when there is so much more Feldman out there to explore.

Do yourself a favor, listen to this CD...perhaps borrow it from a friend first (Feldman is an aquired taste I think. I wouldn't have gotten him ten years ago.) Listen with attention, but not concentration, rather like a musically guided meditation. Only then do you start to get where Feldman is trying to take you.

Buy another rug.......2001-10-05

This interpretation of "Coptic Light" is horrible. The magnanimous coptic tapestry was abraded by corrosive chemicals, and thrown in a humid catacomb where there is no light. I wonder if the other reviewers were so positive to this recording simply because it is very unusual that American orchestras record Feldman's music. I recommend instead the beautiful reading by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Morgan (Cpo # 999189).

Color me unimpressed.......2001-07-04

After so many people telling me just how brilliant this work was, I finally decided to take the plunge and buy it. I can't say I'm exactly happy, but not altogther disappointed either. I'm not so much happy in the fact that I laid down cash to hear this mediocre repetitive meandering, but not disappointed because at least I know what it sounds like now and know to avoid the "Feldman" bin at my local record store.

"Coptic Light" is fairly interesting...but it grows tiresome upon repeated listenings. I could see where it would be intersting live. "Coptic Light" absolutely STOMPS the other two pieces, so that should tell you what I thought about them. While perhaps quasi-interesting live, on disc its like staring at asphalt...which is more boring than watching paint dry...because when paint drys...at least there is minimal action occurring. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of "weird"...I like Takemitsu, Messaien, Schnittke, etc, but this is just like listening to white noise. Its not very dynamic...it kind of oozes. If that's what he was tyring to achieve, then he hit it spot on.

If this flips your switch, that's fine with me, but I could think of a thousand better ways to spend 70 minutes than listening to this CD.

extremely quiet.......2000-09-05

The music of Morton Feldman (1926-1987) can be frustrating to those who expect movement in time. I have found that this frame of mind opens the way to anxiety and tension. On the other hand, by listening to the sound as it is presented at the moment in time without expectation or anticipation, the music tends to release a transcendent quality. PIANO & ORCHESTRA and CELLO & ORCHESTRA are examples of this characteristic of Mr Feldman's music. Sounds are introduced which have a weak relationship to past and future. With the sound itself as its own goal, it surpasses knowledge and experience. I find this extremely unique and fascinating. COPTIC LIGHT accepts this approach, applying it to a more complex arrangement.

The word Copt is derived from the Greek word Aigyptos, which was, in turn, derived from "Hikaptah", one of the names for Memphis, the first capital of Ancient Egypt. The modern use of the term "Coptic" describes Egyptian Christians, as well as the last stage of the ancient Egyptian language script. Also, it describes the distinctive art and architecture that developed as an early expression of the new faith.

The Coptic Church is based on the teachings of Saint Mark who brought Christianity to Egypt during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero in the first century, a dozen of years after the Lord's ascension. He was one of the four evangelists and the one who wrote the oldest canonical gospel. Christianity spread throughout Egypt within half a century of Saint Mark's arrival in Alexandria as is clear from the New Testament writings found in Bahnasa, in Middle Egypt, which date around the year 200 A.D., and a fragment of the Gospel of Saint John, written using the Coptic language, which was found in Upper Egypt and can be dated to the first half of the second century.(www.coptic.net/EncyclopediaCoptica/)

Regardless of your interest in spiritual matters, I find that thinking about these types of eternal questions fits well with the endless nature of this piece. If you are interested in American Composers of the late 20th Century, or in music which is contemplative, this CD will be interesting to you.

getting lost in the moment.......2000-07-21

Speaking from personal experience, Feldman's music is EXTREMELY difficult to perform effectively. Here, Tilson Thomas and the NWS present some of the best performances of Feldman's orchesral music ever recorded. My only reservations about this recording lie in its promotion and packaging; the pieces on this disc are touted as "premiere recordings," when in fact all three works were recorded on the German CPO label in the late 80s/early 90s. Sadly, this is one of the last releases on Decca's "Argo" sub-label, which has now been shut down after many fine years of service to contemporary music.

Morton Feldman: Violin and Orchestra; Coptic Light

Average customer rating:

great live Feldman
Some random thoughts about Violin & Orchestra

Morton Feldman: Violin and Orchestra; Coptic Light

Manufacturer: Col Legno
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Feldman: Piano and Orchestra; Flute and Orchestra; Oboe and Orchestra; Cello and Orchestra
Morton Feldman: Piano and String Quartet / Aki Takahashi, Kronos Quartet
Feldman: Crippled Symmetry
Morton Feldman: Violin and String Quartet / Christina Fong, Rangzen Quartet
Morton Feldman: For Philip Guston

ASIN: B0002YLCW4
Release Date: 2004-09-28

Customer Reviews:

great live Feldman.......2005-03-21

Having just discovered Feldman's 1970s "still-life" works, all among my favorites of his output, I was more than a little chirpy when I learned of this release in Col Legno's Musica Viva live recordings series last year. The feature is the still-life "Violin and Orchestra" (1979), never before recorded. 50 minutes long in this rendition by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Peter Rundel conducting on 2/2/01 in Munich, it was the last and the longest of the still-life compositions. (See my 8/8/04 review of the set of 4 still-life works -- flute, oboe, piano and cello -- conducted by Hans Zender.)

Isabelle Faust is fantastically impressive on violin, playing the long, quiet, but dazzlingly varied line. Like the other still-lifes, this is no conventional concerto, there is no melodic line to follow, and no grand cadenzas, but there is more variety and dynamic contrast than in the works by Feldman that followed. The growing length, compared to the other still-life works, most of which were about a half-hour long, was a sign of things to come.

Given that the 1999 Argo recording by Michael Tilson Thomas has gone out of print, it is a perfect bonus that this disc includes the same forces (Rundel & BRSO) performing "Coptic Light" (1985) for orchestra (also live, 11/15/02, in Munich), a slow, quiet, gradually shifting pattern of sound, repetitive patterns that subtly change over time. I don't find it quite as compelling as "For Samuel Beckett" from a few years later, a work similar in design, but it represents an early expression of a new twist in Feldman's work, what some have called his "Persian rug" period, which sadly would prove to be his last.

Some random thoughts about Violin & Orchestra.......2004-10-09

"Violin & Orchestra" was finished in 1979 and first performed in 1984; not only was this the last in his series of "--- and Orchestra" works (there were eight of them so titled), this was the longest (this recording clocks in at 50 minutes but I have also known about another performance being 64 minutes). As usual this not the conventional "concerto" pitting a flashy soloist against an orchestral canvas; soloistic figures are mostly limited to bowed long tones and glissandi (with some pizzicato thrown in for good measure) with a constantly changing background.

This comes from a Feldman's so-called "Zippy period" (all right, called by me mostly) from 1977 to 1981, which also includes "Neither" (opera in one act), "Flute & Orchestra", "The Turfan Fragments", "String Quartet No.1", "Trio for piano, violin and `cello", and "Patterns in a Chromatic Field". Of course the usual hallmarks of Feldman are there: the low dynamics, variant obsessions with small motifs, and interruptions to silent stretches. The durations started to stretch out much further, too ("Neither" and "Vn/Orch" are just short of an hour, while "Fl/Orch" and "Turfan" are each a half an hour, but the three above named chamber works are all well over an hour and a quarter, at least). But, as in the cases of "Flute & Orch", "Turfan", "Neither" and, especially "Violin & Orch", there are quite a few occasions where treble winds play clusters in their high registers. Figures occasionally "zip" by rather fleetingly. Extended pages of chromatic sixteenth note melodies make appearances now and then. Staccato notes are on occasion barked out, loudly even. There is stillness, but there is also quirky motion. It is all serious, but there is also some humorous relief.

The opening two pages are similar to "Patterns in a Chromatic Field", with the violin playing a quick and skittish chromatic passage in high harmonics punctuated by sforzando blasts from the winds and brass (supported here by delicate, sprinkly string pizzicati). Later, almost toward the end, the soloist interrupts the proceedings by playing some 12-tone rows (supposedly Feldman was going to title this piece, "Why Webern?").

This piece is a glimpse as to what Feldman would be doing for remaining years of his life: His obsession with small patterns and various materials and stringing them together, following one item with another item, sometimes returning to the previous item, other times following it with yet another item, spontaneously. A splash of blue with a touch of brown. Waiting. A rattling from the percussion section. Anticipating. Some dense piano chords with low harp reinforcements. The focus shifts without warning. It's tradition and non-tradition. Don't expect Mendelssohn or Vivaldi; that's already been taken care of. One of Feldman's hardest pieces to pin down, but gratifying in the end, please be patient.

As of this writing, there are now six recordings of "Coptic Light", making this his most recorded orchestral work. On one hand, I am glad to see that some of Feldman's works are being played often enough, both on disc and in concert halls (and this recording is quite fine); on the other hand, there are still a host of other orchestral pieces that have still not seen the light of CD day (such as "Structures for orchestra", "On Time and the Instrumental Factor", "Orchestra" and "Chorus and Orchestra" (I & II)) but I know these will be released some day (or at least have a gut feeling) and I (and everyone else out there in "Feldmanland") will be patient when they do.

Rückblick Moderne: 20th Century Orchestral Music

Average customer rating:

BUT WHY?
Great Recordings
A must for lovers of modern music

Rückblick Moderne: 20th Century Orchestral Music

Manufacturer: Col Legno
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Ballets | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music

Trios | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

Percussion | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

Modern & 20th Century | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Choruses | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000038IDI
Release Date: 1999-11-15

Amazon.com

It starts, appropriately enough, with Charles Ives's The Unanswered Question, which seems to hold its breath, and occasionally exhale in brief bursts of panic, as the new century unfolds. It ends with Dmitri Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony Op. 110a (based on his String Quartet No. 8), whose alternating sequences of anguish, alarm, and derision come as close as possible for absolute music to indicting its bloody history--eight CDs and over 30 works later.

Rückblick Moderne: 20th Century Orchestral Music represents as fine a look back at musical modernism as you're likely to get. And in what a lavish package! A tall box holding two multi-CD jewel boxes and a beautifully printed booklet with photographs of modern and postmodern architecture and extensive liner notes (in German). Even the CDs themselves look handsome. All the more amazing when you realize that the entire set was digitally recorded live--with coughs, turning pages, chair creaks, and vivid sound--during one week in 1998 in Stuttgart (where, it seems, you have to travel nowadays even to hear about this kind of music), by such groups as the RSO Saarbrücken and the Bamberger Symphoniker, led by Dennis Russell Davies, Michael Gielen, Heinz Holliger, and other risk takers. Each CD has been programmed around a theme; for example, "Explosion/Implosion" (featuring Varèse and Mahler's tone poem Totenfeier, later becoming the first movement of his Second Symphony) and "Minimal Postludien," which includes (heads up, completists) Philip Glass's Echorus for two solo violins and string orchestra and Ligeti's Ramifications. Stravinsky, who, like Schoenberg and Cage, appears to cast a long shadow over this imposing collection, remains one of the highlights: a sharp, fiercely erotic performance of Le Sacre by Lothar Zagrosek and the Stattsorchester Stuttgart that helps remind us how much modern music has done, in the face of controversy and disaster, to ground us in our humanity. --Robert Burns Neveldine

Customer Reviews:

BUT WHY?.......2002-05-15

At eight cds, this could have been a hefty set of 20th century orchestral music. But somewhere along the line, around the beginning of planning the festival I'm guessing, something went horribly wrong. There were eight concerts, each with a theme. The pieces chosen have often only a tenuous connection with the theme, if any. There are no women composers. There are no composers from Romania. There are no composers from the Czech Republic. There are no composers from Poland. That means no Gubuidulina, no Ana-Marie Avram, no Joan Tower. That means no Dumitrescu or Janacek or Lutoslawski. Can you believe it? A collection of twentieth century orchestral music with no Lutoslawski? Verily it boggleth the mind.

But so what? Are the pieces they did play well played? Well, sometimes. Gielen and Zender get predictably excellent results. But much of the rest sounds for all the world like first reads. Extremely sensitive and polished first reads to be sure, but no sense of piece qua piece, a thing with a shape from start to finish. (This is most apparent in the eccentric phrasing.) These are not the newer pieces, either, but Ives and Ravel and Bartok and Stravinsky. You know these people have played these pieces dozens of times. No excuse.

It's hard to fault a company (Col legno) that puts out so many fine performances of the likes of Helmut Lachenmann, but in this venture I really think they dropped the ball.

Great Recordings.......2000-12-30

I wish I could read in German! This is the only "flaw" of this edition, in my opinion: it seems to have a great booklet, but I can't read it. Otherwise, it is a great collection: excelent recordings, good choice of works. I find it an excelent intro to modern music.

A must for lovers of modern music.......2000-06-26

This 8 CD collection contains a wonderfully diverse selection of works that trace the development of music through the century. This set contains music form the pivotal artists from the beginning of the century; Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Stravinsky, Debussy, Bartok, Ives and Varese. Master from later in the century include; Messiaen, Carter, Boulez, Cage, Feldman, Kurtag, Schnittke, Glass, and Ligeti. From the late romanticism of Mahler, to the impressionism of Ravel and Debussy, the atonality of the Second Viennese, the neo-styles of Stravinsky, Kurtag, Schostakovich, and Schnittke, to the minimalism of Glass, this collection has it all. Also within this collection are some classic compositions by lesser known masters such as; Maderna, Nono, Kagel. Rihm, Zimmerman, Furrer, and Lachenmann to name a few. Dennis Russell Davies, Michael Gielen, Heinze Holliger, and Hans Zender conduct superb performances of most of these classics. There is much to cherich in this collection, and are many treasures to be discovered.

Morton Feldman: Durations I-V; Coptic Light

Average customer rating:

Not the best pairing for "Coptic Light"
Early Feldman is rough going,but Coptic is worth it

Morton Feldman: Durations I-V; Coptic Light

Manufacturer: Cpo Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Feldman: Crippled Symmetry
Feldman: String Quartet (1979)
Morton Feldman: Complete Violin|Viola and Piano Works / Christina Fong, Paul Hersey
Morton Feldman: For Frank O'Hara; Bass Clarinet & Percussion; De Kooning
Morton Feldman: Piano and String Quartet / Aki Takahashi, Kronos Quartet

ASIN: B000001RW3
Release Date: 1997-02-04

Tracks:

Durations I
Durations II
Durations III: Slow
Durations III: Very Slow
Durations III: Slow
Durations III: Fast
Durations IV
Durations V
Coptic Light

Customer Reviews:

Not the best pairing for "Coptic Light".......2000-02-22

The performance of "Coptic Light" is very good, but "Durations I-V" is not the best coupling. Feldman's orchestral music is more "accessible" than his chamber work (though I personally prefer the music for small ensembles), and newcomers to Feldman might prefer an all-orchestral CD. For "Coptic Light", consider the Argo recording, which includes two other concerti. For a better performance of "Durations I-V", try "The Ecstasy of the Moment" on Etcetera, a 3-CD all-chamber set.

Early Feldman is rough going,but Coptic is worth it.......1999-04-04

Artists need to find forms, frames, and structures to engage their confused thinking. They always need to do something with ideas that don't know what to do with. And for Feldman this series of pieces "Durations" was his attempt to learn about timbre in a very challenging way. Feldman has always been interesting in pure unshaped and shaped beauty. His music floats and delicately visits different timbres, sometimes creating transparent layers and uninvolved counterpoint. Feldman wrote at the piano it said it slowed him down. He thought his music needed to pace itself in order to look globally at the whole edifice. These "Durations" with varying sets of instruments is rough going if this is your first time Feldman. In listening you will find yourself analyzing sound more,like you are looking at a sound under a microscope,"Coptic Light" is a rare treat. Unless you scour the new music festival circuit in Europe you can never hear Feldman's works with orchestra. He has concertos. "Coptic Light" we find Feldman where he ought to be, in a large bright field of sound with lots of spaces. The Germans here bring a precise beauty and committed sound. I would have included another of Feldman's orchestra; work and jettisoned the "Durations".

Average customer rating:

finale of the Bruckner is brilliantly paced and visceral.
Top-notch Bruckner 8th, with distinctly modern clarity

Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8

Manufacturer: Hanssler Classics
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Classical | Indie Music | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00009QGD1
Release Date: 2003-06-24

Tracks:

Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 in c minor;
Morton Feldman: Coptic Light

Album Description

More Magisterial Bruckner from Gielen and a stunning reading of Feldman's elliptical "Coptic Light"! Critics on both sides of the Atlantic have prised these insightful performances. Here's a recording that will appeal BOTH to fans of Gielen AND Morton Feldman!

Customer Reviews:

finale of the Bruckner is brilliantly paced and visceral........2006-04-11

The opening of the finale has a tremendous sense of momentum.Breathtaking,spine tingling stuff.I particularly like the urgent timpani and the solidity of the climax 6minutes in.Also,Gielen has a delicious way of dipatching that weirdest of excursions at 2:31
In all of this,Gielen yields nothing to the likes of Knappertsbush and HVK (his 1956 BPO recording)but elesewhere in the symphony this magic touch is less consistent.infact, at times it's hard to credit as being the work of the same conductor!
The trio section of the Scherzo is touching but what is one to make of the the horribly ponderous account of the main section?....compare Knappertsbush who is so much more airborne and,HVK at a slower tempo who is more imaginatively phrased.The first movement sounds like a sequence of exciting climaxes interspersed with meandering.
An uneven effort,but the last movement is well worth catching as is the coupling.
Feldman's hypnotic 'coptic light' is one of the most strikingly original orchestral pieces from the post war years and Gielen has the full measure of these complex but alluring textures.At a swifter tempo than Tilson Thomas there's no sense of being rushed.

Top-notch Bruckner 8th, with distinctly modern clarity.......2003-10-18

The composer labored mightily over his eighth symphony; and as with many of the others, a variety of versions or editions eventually littered history. Right off, a performer must decide which version, if any, is the best or most authentic. Self-doubting and malleable as Anton Bruckner was, whether listening to hateful critics or so-called friends and supporters; it can be difficult to discern his actual wishes, even from reading his letters. With regard to the Eighth Symphony, for example, Bruckner's letters to the famous conductor Weingartner are full of him begging that the length finale be cut, and tempos be adjusted however Weingartner might like, for the planned performance in Mannheim. Michael Gielen here opts for the Haas version or edition. This Haas redaction recombines the music so brashly cut from earlier versions, while using the composer's last version as well. Like other masterly Bruckner conductors, Gielen is wise enough to let the music unfold at its own pace, neither dragging out tempos or phrasing to relish in making romantic points, nor having to accelerate too dramatically as the mighty crescendos surge and build to climactic moments. Other orchestras, epitomized by Vienna, Berlin, and Dresden ... all of whom have become famous for their Bruckner sound ...bring amazing depths of string tone, brass and woodwinds to their playing. The SWR Baden-Baden has gotten very good, but its sound is still leaner and more muscular overall, than the other famous Bruckner orchestras. This lets Gielen achieve his familiar genius to bring great clarity, as well as the more customary breadth of pace and vision, to this Bruckner Eighth. All resounds splendidly in the Hans Rosbaud studio in Baden-Baden, then lapses into silence, breathing silence. Phrases and sections are musically shaped into long lines, and large paragraphs of narrative. The harmony somehow always seems to move forward, even when it is apparently remaining quite still, poised, and transmuted by eternities, at familiar passages. The added clarity Gielen and the SWR-BB allow this music only heightens its structural strength, letting bone and muscle show to good effect. Even with the mystical glowing lights turned down a bit, though by no means extinguished in this reading; the conductor and orchestra reveal just how much of the granite mountain still begs to live on in the polished expanses of the cathedral. Further, the clarity makes good old Anton Bruckner seem quite a bit less distant from the New Music soon to emerge into history, in that same Vienna. Highly recommended.

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