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Best Sounding Bruckner Recordings

There is a Mahler for Audiophiles thread here, but I am not sure if there is one for Bruckner.  IMO these are the two Composers that benefit the most from high quality sound.  Both Composers relied extensively upon spatial effects.  Bruckner, with his Organist background, was conscious of reverberation effects, and tended to treat the entire Orchestra as one vast Organ.  Mahler had many spatial effects built into his Symphonies.
  I listen to many historical recordings, but I find that these two composers suffer the most when sonically compromised.  I have no problem enjoying a Toscanini Beethoven Symphony, as the majesty of the music and the playing overcome sonic limitations.  However, listening to the Horenstein Bruckner Seventh from 1927 is a real trial.  Even the best restorations make it sound like it was recorded in a phone booth, and the towering beauty of the piece is missing.
  Now, with Bruckner, we have the problem of all of those multiple editions.  I am going to confess straight out that I have no expertise here .  And given that this is an audiophile site, I will concede readily that the best sounding Bruckner recordings may not necessarily be the ultimate in recorded performance.  However, I am looking for comments about great sounding Bruckner recordings that are also good performances 
mahler123
mahler123 OP
3,362 posts
 
Edge 
 I am not enough of a Wagnerian to have an opinion.  I prefer my RW as bleeding chunks.  I prefer Solti in The Ring because he keeps me interested 
mahler123 OP
3,362 posts
 
Lefty

It turns out my digital TAS subscription is still active, because I bought a year in advance, and so I read the favorable review by Ted Libby.  That is quite a story he relates, being one of a handful of people available for what may have been HvK last rehearsal.  I have the Karajan Blu Ray transfer of the Beethoven Symphonies which was a worthwhile investment 
recluse
270 posts
 
Very happy with the boxed complete cycle, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim, DG.

$30 for 9 CD is a heck of a bargain on this IMO
mahler123 OP
3,362 posts
 
I think I paid $25 for the Blu Ray of just the Fourth.  Yes, I would say that’s a bargain, but to paraphrase Pete Townsend, “not the best I ever had.”
mahler123 OP
3,362 posts
 
I’m listening to the Karajan/Berlin Fifth on Blu Ray, and in comparing this to the Redbook Fifth I hate to use the usual audiophile cliche like a veil being lifted, etc...but there it is.  Maybe the cliche about everything snapping into focus is more appropriate....there is greater clarity and ambience.  Whatever.  Great stuff 
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