Anton Bruckner - Symphony No. 3 - 1889 version - Music box, February 26^th, 2024

The Bruckner 24 Integral: proposed by conductor Markus Poschner alongside two of Austria's leading orchestras, Bruckner Orchester Linz and ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. This 19-disc integral offers all the known versions of the 10 Brucknerine symphonies - a tribute to the composer Anton Bruckner, who will celebrate his 200th birthday in September 2024.

Bruckner is well known to have revisited the scores of his symphonies at least once, that is why there are 19 scores for 10 symphonies - numbered from 0 to 9.

That is also the case of Symphony No. 3, composed in 1873, revised once in 1877, and ultimately in 1889. This symphony can most often be heard nowadays in its 1873 version, which is also the longest of them all. This symphony also speaks of the bond between Bruckner and Wagner - Bruckner presented the scores of the symphonies no. 2 and 3 to Wagner, asking him to pick the one which he liked the most. Wagner chose the third one, which Bruckner also dedicated to him. The original version of Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 includes Wagnerian motifs, which we will no longer encounter in its later versions; moreover, he said himself that the 1889 version of the symphony, which is more concentrated, is incomparably better than the earlier versions.

In Bruckner 24, Markus Poschner has already published the 1873 version of Bruckner's Symphony no. 3; the 1889 version from the current disk, will be launched on the 1^st of March 2024. The recordings were made in February 2023 by Bruckner Orchester Linz, having Markus Poschner as musical director, with a mandate ending in 2027, as the conductor has recently announced.

So, we will listen to a concentrated version with rather alert tempos taken by Markus Poschner, who still finds the balance between drawing the melodic themes and the complex construction of this symphony's form. However, I must admit that I found Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, with whom he recorded Symphony No. 2 to which I listened at the beginning of February, more homogenous and malleable.