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I do not even know where to start. I my comfortably warm and presold to myself world there is only one way to play Bruckner 8 symphony. I have quite a few recordings of the work that I like and I have “The Supper Recording” that makes all there rest Bruckner 8 feel like patting a Papier-mâché made tigers in New Jersey mall.

My Bruckner 8 Supper Recording is Wand with his NDR play live in Lubeck Cathedral. Since Yoshi  brought to me this recording from Tokyo, re-mastered  and pressed by Japanese folks, (much better then US RCA CD) performance just hijacked my soil and I play it almost dally for the last few month. It is unquestionably one the most cherished CD I have, and I have quite a lot of unique CD. Besides the truly mind-boggling Wand phrasing during this performance (I think I heard all Wand’s recordings of the 8th) the sound of Lubeck Cathedral during that event was beyond believe. It was 10c reverberation time and the hall is virtually not playable. Later on Wand recorded the 9th symphony with the same band in the same Cathedral but the sound of Cathedral killed it. With the 8th it is hypnotizing beyond imagination. In my view to hear the Lubeck Bruckner 8 by Wand on the Macondo in the new room is the most advanced listening experience Audio is able to furnish. Trust me; it is not the pride of ownership but the assessment of the person who knows what he is talking about.

So, with all my mental settlement on Lubeck’s Wand I heard today a recording that flipped my little comfortable world upside down. It was Eduard van Beinum with Royal Concertgebouw, playing Bruckner 8 in 1955.    This recording is as far from Wand as it could be. Wand/Lubeck orchestra is a definition of royalty and sophistication. The Wand/Lubeck phases and balance of the Orchestra in space and in time made with so much grace that generation shall study this recording as an ultimate musical aspiration. The Beinum’s Concertgebouw is vulgar and incredibly crude. Furthermore it is very fast with absolutely horrible instrumental balance. Still, among that earthy vulgarity Beinum pull out the play that defines Bruckner 8 in it’s own way.

The initial reaction to the Beinum’s 8th is like to a smelly stench. Then Beinum take you by your nose and stick your nose into a stunning demonstration how to play Bruckner. The people at this site were bitching the Bruckner is wavy and that they need to run to a refrigerator to grab a sandwich while Bruckner develops his thymes.  Listed what Beinum did in 1955 – you will not see him coming – it is an entire hour of  fantastic pressure coming from astonishing play by Concertgebouw and from very different, almost concert-like redoing of  Bruckner 8th.

To me this Beinum does not sound like Bruckner at all. This is a new awareness that Beinum conceived using the Bruckner Symphony. It is not the music by a church organist but rather a dairy of war refugee. The  Beinum Bruckner from 55 has amassing power-transmitting quality.  In a way it reminds me the Parajanov’s “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestor” – you sit in from of the scene and have no idea of what is going on but feel a stream of raw energy coming to you from screen.  This Beinum Bruckner works the same way. Your proverbial sandwich is the very last thing you care when Beinum will do you.

Is Beinum Bruckner from 55 better then Lubeck’s Wand. Imposable to compare! They sound like two different symphonies. The magnitude of each of them so astonishingly high that even the question of comparing them I feel would insult them. The Beinum Bruckner 8 from 55 is ceremonially placed at my shelfs with the best recording ever were committed to recording media.

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