ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Markus Poschner – Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E Major, WAB 107 (Ed. P. Hawkshaw) (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:19 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Capriccio

An ensemble of international renown, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (ORF Vienna RSO) is a paragon of Viennese orchestral tradition. Known for its exceptional programming, the orchestra combines 19th-century repertoire with contemporary works and rarely performed pieces from other periods.

All ORF Vienna RSO performances are broadcast on the radio, and the orchestra performs in two subscription series in Vienna, in the Musikverein Wien and the Wiener Konzerthaus. In addition, it regularly appears at major festivals in Austria and internationally such as the Salzburg Festival, musikprotokoll im steierischen herbst and Wien Modern. The ORF Vienna RSO enjoys a successful collaboration with the MusikTheater an der Wien, and is also equally at home in the film music genre.

The orchestra regularly tours internationally, and its discography spans a broad range of cross-genre recordings. Under the leadership of its former chief conductors, which include Milan Horvat, Leif Segerstam, Lothar Zagrosek, Pinchas Steinberg, Dennis Russell Davies, Bertrand de Billy and Cornelius Meister, the orchestra has continuously expanded its repertoire and its international reputation. Marin Alsop has served as the orchestra’s chief conductor since 2019.

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ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Markus Poschner – Bruckner: Symphony No. 3 in D Minor, WAB 103 Wagner (1873 Version, Ed. L. Nowak) (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:57 minutes | 1009 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © CapriccioNR

Bruckner revised his Third Symphony more than any other: There are three manuscript versions, two published versions from within his lifetime, a separate manuscript of the Adagio, and surviving revision fragments from 1874, 1875, and 1876. In its first version (here recorded), it is Bruckner’s longest and most overtly Wagnerian symphony. When Brucknerian extraordinaire Robert Simpson got to study Nowak’s edition of this version in 1977, he threw his hitherto held opinions overboard and declared it an “achievement… progressively maimed in successive versions.” As part of this completist cycle, Markus Poschner will present the work in all states of pruning, but this is the obvious point to start at.
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ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Markus Poschner – Bruckner: Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, WAB 102 (1872 Version, Ed. W. Carragan) (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:44 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Capriccio

The most comprehensive Bruckner Symphonies cycle, including all available versions. Capriccio’s Complete Bruckner Symphonies Edition includes all versions of the symphonies either published or to be published under the auspices of the Austrian National Library and the International Bruckner Society in the Neue Anton Bruckner Gesamtausgabe (The New Anton Bruckner Complete Edition). Bruckner’s Second Symphony is rarely heard in its 1877 version, and it has remained virtually unperformed in the 1872 original version. This is not because of any deficiency in Bruckner’s earlier ideas compared with the later alterations. It’s mainly down to habit and convenience, since acquiring new parts and re-learning a score with many detailed differences requires significant extra effort and resources. That’s a pity, because it is well worth discovering the original rawness of Bruckner’s early masterpiece, something rarely heard since its creation, until now.

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ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and Markus Poschner – Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 (1888) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:32 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © CapriccioNR

The most comprehensive Bruckner Symphonies cycle, including all 19 available versions. Bruckner’s frantic revisions of his symphonies Nos. 3, 4 and 8 followed his disappointment with Hermann Levi’s rejection of the original version of the Eighth Symphony. Helping in this large-scale effort to revise the works were some of Bruckner’s former students – Franz and Joseph Schalk, Ferdinand Lowe, Max von Oberleithner and Cyrill Hynai. The result was that the reputation of these versions – especially the final version of the Fourth – became tarnished as something not quite Echt-Bruckner. It wasn’t until the discovery of photographs of the 1888 version’s manuscript score, and the subsequent publication of Benjamin Korstvedt’s edition of the work, that it became clear that this late edition really did reflect Bruckner’s intentions. To ears familiar with the even better-known 1881 version, the result might sound mystifying, even troubling, but it also surprises with many particularly exquisite passages!

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