GREAT RECORDINGS phase 11

BRUCKNER: SYMPHONY No.6*
Gluck arr. Wagner
Overture: Iphigénie en Aulide
Humperdinck: Overture: Hänsel und Gretel
Philharmonia Orchestra
*New Philharmonia Orchestra
Otto Klemperer

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'A legendary recording, long regarded as the finest of this symphony. The performance is a glorious one. The orchestra is absolutely superb in every department and Klemperer's comprehensive unfolding of the composer's far-ranging forms is as infallible as ever.' (Gramophone)

Klemperer's classic recording of Bruckner's Sixth Symphony is coupled here with two Romantic overtures taken from another of the conductor's superb EMI LPs from the early 1960s.

The CD programme satisfyingly combines Bruckner's bracing symphony, completed in 1881, with Wagner's 1847 concert overture Iphigénie en Aulide, fashioned from Gluck's original, and the overture to Humperdinck's delightful children's opera Hänsel und Gretel.

Not only are the three works linked through the great Austro-German musical tradition, but also through the enthusiasm of another composer from that same tradition, Gustav Mahler. He gave the first complete performance of the Bruckner, in Vienna in 1899, hailed the Humperdinck as 'a masterpiece' after its premiere in Weimar in 1893, and conducted and staged a revival of Wagner's edition of Gluck's opera in Vienna in 1907, a production which served as a lifelong inspiration to the young Otto Klemperer.