Symphonies

Grade: B+ Anton Bruckner wrote 11 symphonies – Numbers One to Nine plus a student exercise and the formidable rejected symphony endearingly known as ‘Number 0’, actually finished between the First and Second. So why does this 200th anniversary cycle conducted by Markus Poschner, divided between the Bruckner Orchester Linz and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, run to 18 CDs? The answer is that it gives us two versions of Numbers One, Two and Eight, and three of Numbers Three and Four. The composer, generally agreed to have been ‘on the spectrum’, was hypersensitive to criticism and compulsively rewrote his symphonies in an attempt to tighten them up and silence

Grade: A Rejoice! A glorious symphonic cycle by a British composer has been issued as a set for the first time. George Lloyd (1913-98) was treated with lofty condescension by the musical establishment because his twelve symphonies contain barely a single dissonance. They’re sprinkled with jaunty tunes that have the feel of an Ealing Comedy – heresy! Also, it didn’t help that for decades Lloyd made his living as a mushroom farmer in the West Country. But he was no amateur: he could write perfect fugues as a teenager and by his early twenties had a fine opera under his belt. Then in 1942, the ship on which he was