Patience Rewarded

Here we have a current favourite to be programmed in concert halls around the world, Bruckner's 7th Symphony played by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. I still think that Rattle achieved better results with the CBSO than he does now with the Berlin Phil but that's another story. This is a fine symphony, gloriously affirmative as the booklet notes say. The architecture and grandeur of Bruckner are there and the opening is thought to be an elgiac piece written in dedication to Wagner who wasn't thought to have long to live. Melancholy but not mournful, the symphony moves on to that brighter affirmative end. The English composer Robert Simpson stated that Bruckner's music doesn't just need patience, it expresses it and this symphony unwinds in a thoroughly rewarding way. There may be more definitive versions played by Austro-German orchestras and conductors but the forces here make a perfectly acceptable stab at it and the recording quality is also excellent.