Well put. I've recently been blown away by a 6 minute YouTube exposition of the Coda of the last movement of the Fourth. It is as micro-managed as all hell, but it's magnificent and like no other performance in history. He was a weird cat, that Celi, but to my ears, he was great.
It's inspired me so much I have written a short Story called Coda. If anyone wants to read it, let me know.
As promised, I have just re-listened to the Ninth. I am quite unable to share Nick's antipathy to Young's take on the score, but he says, "Why I am willing to forgive - indeed embrace - Wand's digressions from the score and not Young's I cannot really explain. Perhaps it is simply because I am convinced by Wand's overarching view of the work and not by Young's", and that kind of helps to justify my own attachment to it where he is repelled - and I can no more hear how Wand's interpretation is "overarching" whereas Young's is fragmented than I can explain the difference in our reactions. (It just so happens that I love Wand's Lübeck recordings of the Eighth and Ninth, too, different though the are from Young's, as I say here:http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/May/Bruckner_sys_SICC1813.htm )
I concede, however, that the climax of the Adagio in Young's recording is realtively under-stated - but then I find that in my review I ponder whether in Wand's recording " the climatic crash is perhaps more garish than grand" - and there we have it; there are many ways to skin a Brucknerian cat.
Hello Ralph.
I've just come across this review: congratulations.I will now go out of my way to hear all of these recordings. Thanks.
Thank you for taking part in the MusicWeb International Forum.
Len Mullenger - Founder of MusicWeb