Happy birthday! Anton Bruckner would have celebrated his 200th birthday on 4 September this year. To mark this anniversary, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, conducted by Ivor Bolton, has now recorded his Symphony in D minor ‘Zeroth’. And how!

Bruckner is considered one of the greatest composers of the Romantic period and one of Austria's greatest composers. And he was so unimpressed with his second symphony that he wrote the following words on the score in the year of his death: ‘Rejected, completely invalid, cancelled, only an attempt’.

The words were supplemented by a zero, crossed out, as a sign of the complete rejection he had for his work. This earned the composition its nickname: Nullte.

The rigorous rejection by its creator also seemed to have had an effect on posterity. After Bruckner's death, the work disappeared into concertante obscurity for 100 years before it was even premièred. And even today, the Symphony in D minor can only rarely be heard live in concert.

So it is all the better that the MO and its conductor of honour Bolton have taken on the composition. They have done so with musically excellent quality in every respect. The orchestra's interpretation is acoustic gold. Dynamics, expression, sound, everything is coherent and of one piece.

This is confirmed by the formal-technical level of the recording. It is well balanced, nothing dominates where it shouldn't, everything is transparent and authentic, the stage is open, convincingly deep and everything together represents the composition and the performance excellently.

So here we have another album by the MO that can be recommended without a doubt, to connoisseurs and Bruckner lovers alike. (Thomas Semmler, HighResMac)

Mozarteumorchester Salzburg
Ivor Bolton, conductor