News Item: Bruckner from the Archives on SOMM
SOMM Recordings announces Bruckner from the Archives, a major new, six-double-CD-volume series celebrating the 200th anniversary of Anton Bruckner’s birth in 1824.
Conceived and designed by SOMM Executive Producer and acclaimed Audio Restoration Engineer Lani Spahr with support from the Bruckner Society of America, the series features rare archival recordings of Bruckner’s 11 symphonies and selected other important works, many appearing for the first time in any form.
Recordings have been sourced from the more than 11,000 Bruckner performances in the Archive of John F. Berky, Executive Secretary of the Bruckner Society of America, who also acts as Consultant for this important series.
Across the series, authoritative notes by Professor Benjamin M. Korstvedt, Jeppson Professor of Music at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, President of the Bruckner Society of America and member of the Editorial Board of the New Anton Bruckner CompleteEdition, trace Bruckner’s life and compositional development from the Symphony in F minor (1862) to the unfinished Ninth Symphony (1894).
Volume 1 (SOMM 5025) will be released on 15 March 2024 and includes two Symphonies: in F minor (Bruckner Orchestra, Linz conducted by Kurt Wöss) and No.1 in C minor, ‘Linz’ (Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eugen Jochum); Bruckner’s only String Quartet (Koeckert Quartet); Psalm 112 (Vienna Akademie Kammerchor, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Henry Swoboda); the Overture in G minor (WDR Symphony Orchestra, Cologne, Dean Dixon); the March in D minor, and Three Pieces for Orchestra (Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Hans Weisbach).
Volumes 2-6 to include the Symphonies in D minor, Nos. 2-9, as well as Psalm 150, Te deum, and String Quintet & Intermezzo in never-before released performances conducted by noted Brucknerians Eugen and Georg Ludwig Jochum, Eduard van Beinum, Volkmar Andreae, Christoph von Dohnányi, Herbert von Karajan, and Joseph Keilberth.
Lani Spahr’s previous SOMM releases include the lauded four-volume sets Vaughan Williams Live (ARIADNE 5016, 5018-20) and Elgar Remastered (SOMMCD 261-4), and a Gramophone Editor’s Choice for “superb audio restorations [bringing] performances fully to life” for Elgar from America, Volume 3 (Ariadne 5015-2).
Biographical information:
John Berky has spent much of his career in broadcasting. He served as the Music Director of the Broadcasting Foundation of America and produced concert broadcasts for National Public Radio, WGBH Boston, the Finnish Broadcasting Company and the United States Coast Guard Band. He served as Director of Radio at Connecticut Public Broadcasting for 18 years. In his retirement, he has maintained the website www.abruckner.com and the Bruckner Archive which holds over 11,000 Bruckner recordings, books, scores, prints, and other memorabilia.
Professor Benjamin M. Korstvedt is the George N. and Selma U. Jeppson Professor of Music at Clark University, President of the Bruckner Society of America, and a member of the editorial board of the New Anton Bruckner Collected Works Edition. His editions of the Fourth Symphony have been performed and recorded by leading orchestras worldwide, including those in Vienna, Berlin, Amsterdam, Cleveland, Boston, Chicago, Minnesota, and Tokyo. He has published widely on topics related to Bruckner, Mahler, symphonic aesthetics, compositional process, music criticism, and musical culture in late nineteenth-century Vienna, interwar Austria, and during the Nazi era. His book Bruckner's Fourth: The Biography of a Symphony will appear in 2024 from Oxford University Press.
Formerly a leading performer on period oboes in the US, Lani Spahr was a member of Boston Baroque and the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra of Boston. In addition, he has appeared with many of North America’s leading period instrument orchestras, including Tafelmusik, Philharmonia Baroque, Tempesta di Mare, Apollo’s Fire, Washington Bach Consort, the American Classical Orchestra, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Mercury Baroque and many others. Also a modern oboist, he was the principal oboist of the Colorado Springs Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Opera Festival, the American Chamber Winds, the Maine Chamber Ensemble and made his European solo debut in 1999 playing John McCabe’s Oboe Concerto with the Hitchin Symphony Orchestra in England. He has served on the faculties of Colorado College, Phillips Exeter Academy (New Hampshire) and the University of New Hampshire Chamber Music Institute. He has toured throughout North America, Europe and the Far East on period and modern oboes and has recorded for Telarc, Linn, Koch, Naxos, Vox, Music Masters, L’Oiseau Lyre and Musica Omnia.