Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 (1887 Version)

Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 was the last he completed, but it was revised before its premiere under advice from the conductor Hermann Levi. This live recording by Simone Young and the Hamburg Philharmonic restores the original 1887 score that the composer never heard. The Hamburg brass are resplendent in the heroic first movement—whose victorious ending was later rewritten to die away softly—and the ecstatic fanfares of the “Scherzo” are captured in gloriously bright sound. But the emotional center of the piece is the “Adagio,” whose haunting, harp-flecked chorales offer vistas of otherworldly splendor. Here Young lets the music breathe, confident in the integrity of Bruckner’s initial conception of this colossal work. The enhanced scoring of the 1887 finale, with extra horns and triple woodwinds, adds dramatic heft to the symphony’s robust conclusion. Young and the Hamburg Philharmonic make a strong case for Bruckner’s original vision for the Eighth, and what is surely his most ambitious score.