Ebrach's 25th summer celebrated with rare and resplendent Bruckner

Andrei Licaret at Bad Kissingen gives a commanding performance of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, and Gerd Schaller inspires the Philharmonie Festiva to a great performance of Bruckner's 'Study Symphony'.

Gerd Schaller and the Philharmonie Festiva re-evaluate Bruckner's “Zero” in a first-rate performance, following a somewhat lacklustre Beethoven Violin Concerto from Ingolf Turban.

Gerd Schaller, the Munich Philharmonic Choir and Philharmonie Festiva present a successful revival of an almost forgotten Mass by Johann Herbeck, and Olga Pogorelova plays heavenly Mozart at the spa town of Bad Kissingen.

Bruckner’s Sixth is one of his most genial symphonies and might be considered to inhabit a world not too distant from the symphonies of Schubert, Dvořák and even Beethoven’s Pastoral. Not only are its many melodies immediately appealing, but it is also, in the words of the composer, his “cheekiest” (“die Kechste”).

The Abbey at Ebrach in Germany has all the advantages and disadvantages one might expect of a large ecclesiastical building as a venue for a Bruckner performance and, as far the sound goes, they are summed up in one word: reverberation.

When you begin to get to know the symphonies of Anton Bruckner it’s not long before you come up against “the Bruckner problem”: the fact that there are multiple versions of many of the works, some of which originate from the composer himself who went through periods of revision-mania, while others are the results of collaborations with his supporters, and some were done without the composer’s invo