Deryk Barker, responding to Lewis Liu, writes:

>>I just sold the CD to 2nd hand market.  Personnally, I prefer Tintner's
>>Bruckner #9.  May be Russian orchestra is not suitable for Bruckner's
>>music.
>
>Well, maybe not.  Certainly it's not to all tastes.  But have you heard his
>Tchaikovsky?

Oh yes...I picked up Mravinsky's recording of Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony
and things will never be the same.  That brass!  Harsh, aggressive,
strident, fierce!  What a different way to listen to Tchaikovsky.  I find
the music incredibly and deeply beautiful without being the least bit
pretty, a distinction that is important to me for I weary of prettiness but
never weary of beauty.  I don't care if I never hear another version of the
6th as long as I live...Mravinsky is my personal standard.

This said and done, I could see where the same sound might not sit so well
with Bruckner.  Bruckner's music is bombastic at times, certainly strong
and insistent, but harshness and aggressiveness just don't seem like the
right approach.  But I'll withhold judgment until I actually hear the
Leningrad do Bruckner.

And I'm really sorry to learn that the Leningrad brass has mellowed,
apparently to become acceptable to a wider audience.  Homogenization is
one of the really ugly flies in the ointment of the new world order.

Regards,
John Parker
Tucson, Arizona