Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 – Riccardo Muti

   in Classical Music (Nov, 2017)
There is a sense of space to Riccardo Muti’s Bruckner. This is not a composer Muti is intuitively linked with (he recorded the Fourth and Sixth previously); his performance here is considered and well-recorded. The Chicago orchestra is at the top of its game, string phrasing not only unanimous but exquisitely expressed.

However, while Muti’s terracing of dynamics works well in the first movement, the overall effect remains curiously uninvolving. The quicksilver opening of the Scherzo, a sort of transmogrified Mendelssohn, offers virtuoso playing, but does not grip; the finale, while beautifully, impeccably played, misses the supreme depths this music holds.

While Giulini/VPO (DG) remains the modern nonpareil in this symphony …