BIS releases Minnesota Orchestra's recording of Bruckner's
Fourth Symphony
Music Director Osmo Vänskä conducts Bruckner’s
Romantic Symphony; Album available in stores and at minnesotaorchestra.org
Bruckner’s Fourth is the 454th work the Orchestra has
recorded since 1924
(May 20, 2010) -- The Swedish label BIS Records has released
a recording of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, known as the
Romantic, performed by Music Director Osmo Vänskä and the
Minnesota Orchestra. The disc, the newest chapter of the
highly-acclaimed collaboration between BIS, Vänskä and the
Orchestra, is now available through the Orchestra’s website at
minnesotaorchestra.org,
and will also be available in stores and as a download on major
internet music sites.
Vänskä and the Orchestra recorded the Fourth Symphony at
Minneapolis’ Orchestra Hall in sessions during January 2009.
The BIS team, led by producer Rob Suff, recorded the album as a
Super Audio CD (SACD), using surround sound recording technology
to reproduce the sound of the concert hall as faithfully as
possible. BIS Hybrid SACDs are playable on all standard CD players.
Vänskä and the Orchestra have earned high praise for their
prior recording projects together, including a five-disc
Beethoven symphony cycle with BIS that was described as “maybe
the definitive [cycle] of our time” (The New York Times); the
recordings earned honors including a Grammy nomination for the
Ninth Symphony recording and a Classic FM Gramophone Award
nomination for the disc of the Second and Seventh. The
Orchestra is now recording all five Beethoven piano concertos
with soloist Yevgeny Sudbin, also for BIS.
The Minnesota Orchestra (founded as the Minneapolis Symphony
Orchestra) issued its first recording in 1924, and has since
recorded more than 450 works.
Bruckner’s Fourth: A pinnacle of late Romanticism
Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony has been one of his most popular
works ever since its premiere in 1881, when the composer was
reportedly called out to take a bow after each movement. Its
often-used moniker Romantic is a reference to the
literary genre
of the medieval romance, rather than to the concept of romantic
love. Like many of Bruckner’s works, the Fourth underwent
several revisions. The version recorded here is a new edition
of the Symphony, published in 2004 by American musicologist
Benjamin Korstvedt—that takes into account Bruckner’s 1888
revisions.
The collaborators: Minnesota Orchestra, Osmo Vänskä and
BIS Records
Led by Music Director Osmo Vänskä, the Minnesota
Orchestra is recognized as one of America’s leading
orchestras. Founded in 1903, it performs nearly 175 concerts
each year, with 400,000 attending, and reaches more than 85,000
music lovers annually through its education programs. The
Orchestra is heard through an award-winning series of weekly
radio broadcasts produced by Minnesota Public Radio, with many
concerts subsequently heard on American Public Media’s national
programs, SymphonyCast and Performance Today;
through a six-concert BBC Radio Performance on 3 series
during the 2009-10 season; and through its many recordings
dating to the 1920s.
Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä became the Minnesota
Orchestra’s tenth music director in 2003. During his Minnesota
tenure he has led the Orchestra on three European
tours—including the ensemble’s debut at such prominent music
festivals as the BBC Proms and Edinburgh Festival—as well as
three tours to communities across Minnesota. In addition to
this disc, his recording projects with the Orchestra have
included a Beethoven symphonies cycle; Tchaikovsky’s complete
piano-and-orchestra works with soloist Stephen Hough; and, now
in progress, the Beethoven piano concertos with soloist Yevgeny
Sudbin. As guest conductor, he has led all the major American
and European orchestras. For two decades he was music director
of Finland’s Lahti Symphony Orchestra.
BIS Records, founded in 1973 by its current president
Robert von Bahr, has developed a reputation for recording
eclectic repertoire, including early music as well as works by
many contemporary composers, ranging from Kalevi Aho to
Christopher Rouse. The more than 1,500 titles in the BIS
catalogue (www.bis.se) also include many mainstays of the
concert hall, from a Tchaikovsky cycle with Neeme Järvi to a
Bach Cantata cycle with the Bach Collegium Japan, as well as
Vänskä’s Sibelius collection. The label, based in Sweden, is
respected for the superior sound quality of its releases.
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BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 4 (BIS-SACD-1746)
Minnesota Orchestra
Osmo Vänskä, conductor
BRUCKNER Symphony No. 4, Romantic (1888 version)
Album now available in stores and at minnesotaorchestra.org.
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PRESS CONTACTS:
Gwen Pappas, Director of Public Relations
(612) 371-5628 • gpappas@mnorch.org
Sandi Brown, Public Relations Coordinator
(612) 371-5641 • sbrown@mnorch.org
