Manfred Honeck - Bruckner: Symphony No. 9/ Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/

Multi-Channel Hybrid SACD release from the Fresh! series from Reference Recordings!

Winner! Recording Of The Year chosen by the Bruckner Society!

"The Ninth Symphony has been recorded many, many times, of course, but this new recording stands out clearly as among the finest we have heard. The Pittsburgh Symphony performs with a palpable level of commitment, which is conveyed with extraordinary clarity by the superb recording. Maestro Honeck's interpretation of the Symphony is particularly compelling and musically rigorous, as he outlines in his very thoughtful booklet essay and brings to life with the performance. As a result, we find this to be a recording that brings the listener on a wonderful voyage of musical discovery that captures the full scope of this masterwork in all of its grandeur, tragedy, and human power. All in all, we find this to be a recording of the highest quality. It is a most valuable addition to the discography." — BSA President Benjamin Korstvedt

"With Manfred Honeck, we are touched by a deliciously nuanced wide color palette and vibes. True art to contemplate." ResMusic (France) Sept. 25, 2019

"This is an amazing performance, captured in terrific sound... the effect is truly heavenly." — Classics Today

Reference Recordings proudly presents this iconic work in a new and definitive interpretation from Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, in superb audiophile sound. This Hybrid SACD release was recorded in beautiful and historic Heinz Hall, home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

In his deeply personal and scholarly music notes, Maestro Honeck gives us great insight into the history and the musical structure of Bruckner's final composition, and describes how he conducts and interprets this masterwork. To conclude his notes he quotes Bruckner biographer Max Auer: "The Ninth Symphony surpasses all its predecessors in sublimity and consecration. If Arthur Schopenhauer describes the arts as an image of an idea, but music as an idea in itself, then Bruckner's swan song, his Ninth Symphony, appears to us as the idea of the beyond, of the deity itself. Already from the very beginning of the richly structured first movement, one feels surrounded by the twilight light of a Gothic cathedral-a mood that releases us from the heaviness and fatigue of matter and leads us to the afterlife."

This release is the ninth in the highly acclaimed Pittsburgh Live! series of multi-channel hybrid SACD releases on the FRESH! series from Reference Recordings. This series has received Grammy Nominations in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019. Its recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No.5 /Barber Adagio for Strings won the 2018 Grammy Awards for Best Orchestral Performance and Best Engineered Classical Album.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, known for its artistic excellence for more than 120 years, is credited with a rich history of the world's finest conductors and musicians. Past music directors have included many of the greats, including Fritz Reiner, William Steinberg, Andre Previn, Lorin Maazel and Mariss Jansons. This tradition of outstanding international music directors was furthered in fall 2008, when Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck became music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony.

 

Symphony No. 9 in D minor, (1896; unfinished) ed. Nowak

1. I Feierlich – Sehr ruhig

2. II Scherzo: Bewegt, lebhaft – Trio: Schnell

3. III Adagio: Sehr langsam, feierlich

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