Bruckner Symphony No. 2. Christian Thielemann conducts the Staatskapelle Dresden. Performed 2019 at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. Directed for TV by Alexander Radulescu. Released 2019, disc has 5.0 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
Bruckner wrote 9 symphonies. Now with this HDVD of Bruckner S2, Thielemann has recorded HDVDs of all 9 Bruckner symphonies with the Staatskapelle Dresden. All of these were published by C Major except for Bruckner S7 — this came out under the Opus Arte label! We have done a basic story on all the Thielemann Bruckner HDVDs. Of course, all of these HDVDs were fine performances with good sound recording. We did a detailed review of the S9 and graded it B-. We gave the HDVD of S6 a D+. The weak grades were caused by the grave illness DVDitis.
According to Christian Hoskins, writing in the December 2019 Gramophone at page 68, no other conductor has managed to do all the Bruckner symphonies in video (DVD or HDVD). One would expect this to result in a nice box set at an attractive price, but one wonders how this can happen with Opus Arte having the rights to S7.
Hoskins is one of the very few print critics to deal with video quality when reviewing an HDVD. Here’s what he observed about subject title, “The video direction by Alexander Radulescu maintains a judicious balance between conductor and orchestra, with well-timed close-ups of individual players. There are also occasional distance shots showing the orchestra in the wider setting of the Elbphilharmonie. The Blu-ray disc I watched maintains the exemplary video and audio quality of the cycle as a whole. “ We are grateful to Hoskins for recognizing that video adds something worthwhile to a musical recording, but he is too easily satisfied. I wish I could get him into my home theater to see some of those great HDVDs published by NHK as demos of what a symphony video in HD can look like! Then he would know how to distinguish between videos made for DVD and HDVDs made for HD display! Then he would understand that his attempt to praise the video content of subject title really is just a simple description of a case of DVDitis!
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