Bruckner: Te Deum Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chor & Bernard Haitink

• Anton Bruckner (1824 - 1896): Te Deum, WAB 45:
• 1 Bruckner: Te Deum, WAB 45: I. Te Deum. Allegro moderato 06:35
• 2 Bruckner: Te Deum, WAB 45: II. Te ergo. Moderato 02:42
• 3 Bruckner: Te Deum, WAB 45: III. Aeterna fac. Allegro moderato. Feierlich, mit Kraft 01:36
• 4 Bruckner: Te Deum, WAB 45: IV. Salvum fac. Moderato – Allegro moderato 06:38
• 5 Bruckner: Te Deum, WAB 45: V. In te, Domine, speravi. Maessig bewegt 05:54
• Total Runtime 23:25

Info for Bruckner: Te Deum

The Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra were linked by a long and intensive artistic collaboration, brought to an abrupt end by his death in October 2021. BR-KLASSIK now presents outstanding and as yet unreleased live recordings of concerts from the past years. This recording of Bruckner’s Te Deum and his Eighth Symphony (version by Robert Haas, 1939) documents concerts performed in the Philharmonie im Gasteig in November 2010, and in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz in December 1993.

Haitink first conducted a Munich subscription concert in 1958, and from then on, he repeatedly stood on the podium of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra – either in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz or in the Philharmonie im Gasteig. This congenial collaboration lasted more than six decades. The orchestral musicians and singers enjoyed working with him just as much as the BR sound engineers. As an interpreter of the symphonic repertoire, and especially that of the German-Austrian Late Romantic period, Haitink was held in high esteem worldwide. With him, the symphonies of Gustav Mahler were also in the best of hands at all times. His driving principle was to take the sound architecture of a musical composition with its many-layered interweavings and render it transparently audible; extreme sensitivity of sound was paired with a clearly structured interpretation of the score.

Anton Bruckner created his Te Deum in May 1881, while he was finishing his Sixth Symphony. He then set to work on the Seventh. After completing it, he took up the Te Deum again at the end of September and completed it in March 1884. Hans Richter conducted the premiere on January 10, 1886 by the Vienna Singverein in the Musikvereinssaal. Gustav Mahler was much taken with the work; in his copy of the score, he replaced the subtitle “for choir, soloists and orchestra, organ ad libitum” with “for the tongues of angels, seekers of God, chastened hearts and souls purified by fire!” Bruckner described the Te Deum as the “pride of his life”, writing: “If the good Lord ever calls me to him and asks me what I did with the talents he gave me, I will hold out to him the scroll with my Te Deum – and he will be a merciful judge.” The piece is one of the most important great choral works of its time and is considered a high point of the composer’s artistic output. It was the last of his works that Bruckner ever heard – in a concert on January 12, 1896. Since he was unable to complete the final movement of his Ninth Symphony, he decreed that the Te Deum should be played as a substitute for it.

Krassimira Stoyanova, soprano
Yvonne Naef, mezzo-soprano
Christoph Strehl, tenor
Günther Groissböck, bass
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Simon Halsey, director
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Bernard Haitink, conductor

No biography found.

This album contains no booklet.