Rediscovering Spotify

All my life I’ve wanted to be able to write confidently about orchestral performances and I think I may have cracked it. So forgive me while I show off for a paragraph.

In the last movement of Bruckner’s Seventh, Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra capture the jauntiness of the opening theme; there’s a twist of Haydn amid the grandeur. But it takes a long time for the brass and woodwind to settle down, and when Bruckner gathers his forces for a climax the conductor leans heavily on the gas pedal, as if he’s nearly missed a turning. No such problems with Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, where from the first bar the sheen of the violins tells you that every twist of the score has been mapped out, not to say ironed out, well in advance. Vorsprung durch Technik. For a happy medium — and ‘happy’ is the right word — listen instead to Eugen Jochum with the same orchestra: the strings are as gorgeous as ever and the pulse expertly sustained, but any pomposity is held in check by flutes skipping merrily through the dotted rhythms.