Symphonies for Easter

Despite what the critic Norman Lebrecht calls “consumer saturation,” new recordings of great sacred compositions proliferate apace. Arriving in time for Easter this year are freshly minted renditions of Bruckner’s nine numbered symphonies, Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ, Biber’s complete violin sonatas, and Handel’s Messiah.

Anton Bruckner: 9 Symphonies (Decca) comes courtesy of the maestro Hun-Joung Lim and the Korean Symphony Orchestra. It has been a decade or more since the KSO (which recorded the seventh symphony under Jae-Dong Chung), the Suwon Philharmonic (which recorded the third, fourth, sixth, and eighth), and the Jeju Philharmonic (which recorded all nine) gave the world a Korean Bruckner—too long, according to Lim.

“Korean orchestras have a relatively short history,” he told Korea.net in 2013. “For that reason, they have had a very limited repertoire and rehashed a limited range of pieces. … Bruckner’s [works] can sound a bit plain and boring at first, but after repeated listens … you will find yourself infatuated by the very melodies and rhythms.”

Recorded live at the Seoul Arts Center from 2014 to 2016, Lim’s interpretations mix various editions of the symphonies, including two apiece by Nowak and Haas. Those interpretations unfold confidently but not brashly (especially the adagios), as if excessive deliberateness or excessive haste would shortchange the “melodies and rhythms” with which Lim is entranced.

The symphonies do not, however, sound circumscribed. Rather, they sound the way one might expect them to coming from an orchestra to whom Bruckner’s daunting complexities represent exciting new challenges. The audiences, punctuating the conclusion of every finale (and the final movement of the finale-free Symphony No. 9) with enthusiastic applause and bravos, obviously received the performances in that spirit.

Unlike Bruckner’s symphonies—19th-century works that reveal their qualities slowly—Haydn’s 18th-century The Seven Last Words of Christ, in keeping with the psychological directness of the Classical age, reveals its qualities right away.

As is often the case with program music, the relationship of the music to the texts is less apparent. Haydn’s settings for utterances that must have been spoken in agony (“Father, forgive them … ,” “Mother, behold your son,” “I thirst,” etc.) often feel peculiarly, almost majestically, joyful. Yet this paradox is one reason the music remains perpetually fascinating.

Les sept dernières paroles du Christ en Croix by the Orchestre de Chambre de Toulouse (Gilles Colliard, conductor) (Klarthe) not only captures these paradoxical characteristics but also elevates them. And the warmth and clarity of its sound, as well as the three-dimensionality of the dynamics, enlivens the musicianship, which is so expert it probably would’ve sounded good under any circumstances.

The sound that the Dutch recording engineer Peter Arts delivers on the five-disc Biber: Mystery Sonatas—The Complete Violin Sonatas by Igor Ruhadze and the Ensemble Violini Capricciosi (Brilliant Classics) is equally clear but drier, the better to bring out the literal tensions resulting from the scordatura tunings that Biber prescribed for 14 of his 15 Mystery (aka Rosary) Sonatas. Ruhadze, having subsumed Biber’s technical difficulties, is free to make his Baroque violin “sing.” He does so with expressiveness and individuality.

So do the featured soloists—particularly the mezzo-soprano Gaia Petrone—on the Salzburger Bachchor’s Händel: Messiah (Gramola). Calling the oratorio Western music’s greatest hit is no overstatement. For anyone of average-or-above culture, the stirring recognizability of the melodies vies with that of the Gershwins’ or The Beatles’ songs. Recorded 274 years after Messiah’s debut, this spirited live Easter 2016 performance imbues the music with a timelessness entirely appropriate to its subject.