Bergen Po/Dausgaard - Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 3, original 1873 version

Following a visit to Wagner in Bayreuth in 1873, Anton Bruckner dedicated his most recent symphony, No. 3 in D minor, to �the unattainable world-famous noble master of poetry and music�, and would later refer to the work as his �Wagner Symphony�. Among Bruckner�s symphonies, it is the one with the most complicated genesis: the first version was followed by substantial revisions and it exists in two more versions, from 1877/78 and 1888/89. The first version was never performed in Bruckner�s lifetime � in fact, more than a century passed before the work was heard in the form that Wagner first knew and called �a masterpiece�. This is the version that Thomas Dausgaard has chosen to perform, as he and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra follow up on their recording of the composer�s Sixth Symphony, praised in Fanfare for having �all of Bruckner�s splendor and tenderness without any excess baggage�. Dausgaard explains the reason for his choice as follows: �The original version stands as a monolith � what you go through is musically so strong, swinging between timelessness and drive, despair and ecstasy, divine light and hellish fire, that in the end I feel you have to let yourself go and be won over by it.�