As some of you may have noticed (!), we have a Bruckner anniversary coming up. 4 September 2024 marks the great Austrian symphonist's 200th birthday, and already several complete or near-complete cycles of the symphonies have been flooding the market. Some are restricted to the canonical nos. 1–9, others admit the two early symphonies (the ‘Study’ Symphony in F minor, and the Symphony in D minor ‘no.0’ – the latter of which actually postdates the first version of the official no.1). Several cycles proudly parade the versions they’re recording, though none as prolifically as that conducted by Markus Poschner on the Capriccio label, which claims to be ‘the most comprehensive’, with every available version of each symphony: 18 in total!

Arriving relatively late to the fray is François-Xavier Roth with his Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne, an ensemble with a proud Bruckner tradition, most prominently with its long-serving post-war Kapellmeister, Günter Wand. Already the first releases of this cycle on the Myrios label have been widely praised by knowledgeable critics: no.7 and no.4, the latter in its original 1874 version. And now, as further proof that Roth’s survey could be the most rewarding of the new crop of cycles when it’s completed, along comes his recording of the Symphony no.3 in D minor, again in its original (1873) version, as edited by Leopold Nowak for the International Bruckner Society's Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag as long ago as 1977.

Bruckner’s Third was for many years known in just its second (1877) and third (1889) versions, the latter preferred by such great Brucknerians as Böhm, Jochum and Wand, while the 1877 version found a key champion in Bernard Haitink. Since Eliahu Inbal’s pioneering 1982 Frankfurt recording of the first version, however, there’s been a gradual reassessment of its strengths, with conductors from Norrington to Blomstedt preferring its raw, imperfect beauties to the ‘ruinous’ (Robert Simpson’s term) later revisions. Those revisions may have tightened phrase lengths, sharpened motivic profiles, removed the obvious Wagner quotes, and improved some awkward passages of scoring, but they played havoc with the work’s ambitious formal integrity (by bar-count, the first version of the Third is Bruckner’s longest symphony).

Until now, however, even the finest interpretations of the 1874 Third on disc have felt somehow tentative, as if this were a work still not quite comfortable in its own skin, its relatively new performance tradition still finding its way and overshadowed by the later revisions. At a flash (albeit a patient and loving one), Roth’s Gürzenich recording changes all that. Here is a reading that is all of a piece, with nicely flowing tempi (though without Norrington’s positively indecent haste in the first movement), transparent textures but warmth from the strings where needed, burnished and incisive brass, and clarity in the woodwind. Above all, even in the choppier passages of the outer movements, there’s a sure sense of where the music’s going – essential when there are so many disruptive pauses and bold textural and dynamic contrasts.

As the son of a distinguished organist, Roth seems to understand better than many of his modern rivals the importance of registral dispositions in Bruckner’s scoring, yet he also knows how to handle and shape instrumental lines, and it’s the beauty as much as the power of this reading that is so striking. The perfectly-paced, wonderfully tender account of the Adagio is the best example of this, even the final return of the main theme with its trickily syncopated violin figuration moving along with the greatest suppleness. The grippingly driven Scherzo is one of the fastest on disc, but although Roth follows Bruckner’s instructions and doesn’t make an unmarked slowing down for the Trio, it has a delightful swing to it, a bucolic lightness of touch that would surely have pleased the composer.

In the outer movements there’s great beauty too, but no lack of heft when necessary. After the first fortissimo statement of the falling diminished fourth motif (figure A in the score), the second (harmonised) tutti is underscored by thunderous timpani, evoking an organo pleno sound. Details dart out at the listener, like the first trombone’s quaver figuration in the turbulent passage of the development following the ‘false reprise’ at letter O. And the Wagner quotations, which in some performances give the impression of embarrassing naivety, are expertly integrated into the movement’s overall thrust. The finale, meanwhile, has tremendous drive and a thrillingly stormy development section, yet nothing’s over-forced (as can so often happen even with expert hands), and Bruckner’s sometimes awkward gear changes barely register in a performance of palpable commitment.

And that’s probably the key to the overall success of Roth’s recording: an ever-evident, fundamental belief in (and love for) this music and this particular version that transcends Bruckner’s occasional inexperienced lapses. No other Thirds that we can think of so successfully combine elemental power with such radiant, transparent beauty. Expertly recorded at live concerts in Cologne’s Philharmonie in September 2022, in the presence of a commendably well-behaved audience, this new account is not only the finest traversal of the 1873 version now on disc, but one of the best Thirds out there, regardless of version. If it continues as perceptively as it has begun, Roth’s complete cycle will surely be one for the ages.