Although the timings for this recording are about as typical as one will find, the performance is distinctive. Russian-born and American-trained conductor Jakov Kreizberg gives us a rather subdued first movement, beautifully paced and carefully balanced, with the Vienna Symphony drawing close to its senior rival, the Philharmonic, in the beauty of its playing. The mood becomes downright solemn in the Adagio, the most important movement in this symphony. The first subject is funereal, suggesting that Kreizberg recalls that Bruckner intended it as a memorial to Richard Wagner, seriously ill when the composer began his work on it, and deceased before its completion. The contrasting second subject, which can be played as a cheerful contrast, here maintains the original air of seriousness, while realizing in unusually high degree Bruckner’s splendid part-writing in the strings. The build-up to the movement’s climax is unhurried, making the outburst of the full orchestra, complete with crashing cymbals and thunderous drums, even more effective than usual. The long coda comes across as the lamentation Bruckner intended.

Kreizberg then demonstrates that this symphony, unlike several by the composer, changes from solemnity to robust affirmation in its two shorter and concluding movements. After a fast and boisterous Scherzo, we hear a suitably Haydnesque finale, full of playfulness and affirmation. In sum, this is a first-rate Bruckner Seventh, sounding very good in stereo and even better in multichannel SACD mode. Its measured pacing in the first two movements, along with the use of modern instruments, make it a quite different affair from the recent and highly praised Herreweghe recording for Harmonia Mundi, also available as an SACD, with its original instruments and brisk tempos. More dramatic recordings exist, to be sure: one thinks of several deceased masters—to name a few, Eugen Jochum, Günter Wand, Georg Tintner, Hans Knappertsbusch, Kurt Eichhorn, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Otto Klemperer, and Kurt Sanderling. But Kreizberg’s thoughtful and superbly executed interpretation deserves a wide hearing.

Robert McColley, FANFARE