Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-Flat Major, WAB 104 'Romantic' Tonkünstler Orchester & Yutaka Sado

• 1 I. Bewegt, nicht zu schnell 18:40
• 2 II. Andante quasi allegretto 16:05
• 3 III. Scherzo: Bewegt 10:37
• 4 IV. Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell 22:32
• Total Runtime 01:07:54

Info for Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-Flat Major, WAB 104 'Romantic'

Anton Bruckner himself gave his Fourth Symphony the epithet «Romantische» – but what does this actually mean: romantic? In a world in which life and work are ever more strictly based on reason, on rational, cold calculation and efficient function, the word covers a somewhat diffuse need for the expression of feelings that we so often have to suppress. In order to compensate for this de cit, we need, truth be told, to settle for the inauthentic, the fake, if it might be able to put us in a romantic mood, that is, one characterised by love and longing. And «settling», with its commercial connotations, is entirely appropriate here, since Bruckner’s chosen signal word, interpretable in so many and various ways, is constantly used to get us to buy – from bath salts to holidays, from perfume to houses. «Ladies’ fashion or train tickets, candlelit dinners or spa hotels: the Romantic is always with us. It lies like a cuddly blanket over things», argues the German writer Georg Rudiger in this context. And, towards the end of his second play, the comedy «Drums in the Night» of 1922, Bertolt Brecht has the war veteran Kragler call out «Stop looking so romantic!» Brecht was fighting, therefore, against any soothing sentimentalism and for clarity of thought and its social and political consequences. But this very Romanticism, mistrusted by Brecht as a tranquilising manoeuvre, had once been a revolutionary movement. And who can wonder that, in a further twist of history, even Brecht’s entreaties for a rational Left have been retrospectively discredited by capitalism and neoliberalism as «social romanticism»? …

Tonkünstler-Orchester
Yutaka Sado, conductor

Yutaka Sado
Born in Kyoto, Music Director of the Tonkunstler Orchestra since the start of the 2015-16 season, Yutaka Sado is considered one of the most important Japanese conductors of our time. To mark the opening of the 10th Grafenegg Festival in August 2016 his contract with the Tonkunstler was extended until summer 2022.

After many years assisting Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, Yutaka Sado started winning important conducting prizes such as the Grand Priz of the 39th «Concours international des jeunes chefs d’orchestre» in 1989 in Besançon, France, and the Grand Prix of the Leonard Bernstein Jerusalem International Music Competition in 1995. His close ties with his mentor led to his appointment as Conductor in Residence at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, which was founded by Bernstein. In December 1990, at the «Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert» in the cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, Yutaka Sado conducted alongside other Bernstein protégés.

Since 2005, Yutaka Sado has been Artistic Director of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center (PAC) and of the PAC Orchestra. This concert house and theatre has become one of Japan’s leading artistic venues with some 60,000 subscribers annually. Yutaka Sado’s fame in Japan is enormous, thanks in no small part to a weekly TV programme that he presented from 2008 to 2015 in which he brought the world of classical music closer to Japanese music enthusiasts. For almost 20 years he has been directing the annual performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, featuring 10,000 choral singers, that is held in a stadium in Osaka. The event, loosely translated as «10,000 Times Joy» and held under the aegis of Mainichi Broadcasting System (MBS), a major Japanese radio and TV broadcaster, is hugely popular in Japan. Yutaka Sado leads regular tours with his Super Kids Orchestra, founded in 2003 in Hyogo to support the most talented primary- and middle-school pupils from all over Japan as part of an exemplary music education programme. Since 2003 he has also been principal conductor of the Siena Wind Orchestra, one of the world’s few professional wind orchestras, founded in 1990 and highly popular in Japan.

Yutaka Sado’s career outside of Japan started in France, where he was principal conductor of the Orchestre Lamoureux in Paris between 1993 and 2010. For years the charismatic orchestral leader has also been one of the favourite guest directors of the Orchestre de Paris. In Turin in 2010 he made his Italian operatic debut with Benjamin Britten’s «Peter Grimes» in a production by Willy Decker. He has been returning regularly to the Teatro Regio ever since, with another visit planned for February 2017. The programme for his concert with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Turin includes the «Reformation Symphony» by Felix Mendelssohn. In 2015 he took on artistic direction of the opera «The Marriage of Figaro» by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which was produced by Italian director Elena Barbalich as a sensuous rococo spectacle.

In addition to his extensive concert obligations with the Tonkunstler Orchestra and the PAC Orchestra in Hyogo, Yutaka Sado has accepted invitations to return to the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (in its 70th anniversary season), the Tokyo Philharmonic and the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra during the 2016-17 season. In summer 2017 he is directing a new production of «The Marriage of Figaro» in Hyogo, where he will also conduct Carl Maria von Weber’s «Der Freischütz» in 2018. In the 2017-18 season, Yutaka Sado will debut with the National Symphony Orchestra Washington and return to the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and the Orchestre National de France.

Over the course of his career so far, Yutaka Sado has stood in front of many outstanding European orchestras. He has guested with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Bayerischen Staatsorchester in Munich and the symphony orchestras of the BR, NDR, SWR and WDR radio stations in Germany. Sado has conducted the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Dresden, Hamburg and Bamberg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich. He has also stood in front of the Orchestre de la Suisse-Romande, the London Symphony and the London Philharmonic Orchestras, the BBC Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. In Italy, he has directed the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia Rom, the RAI Torino, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi and the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

Yutaka Sado’s many-facetted musical achievements have been documented in numerous CD recordings. For the label Avex he recorded the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO) with the Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. In 2014 Yutaka Sado and the DSO recorded Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth and Franz Schubert’s Seventh Symphonies. In the same year, his recording with the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra of the «Trilogia Romana» by Ottorino Respighi was released. With the Siena Wind Orchestra he has recorded pieces including the first wind-orchestra version of the «Symphonic Dances» from «West Side Story» for the label Avex as well as the overture to «Candide» and other works by Leonard Bernstein. With the Orchestre Lamoureux he has recorded works by Jacques Ibert for Naxos and by Maurice Ravel, Eric Satie and Emmanuel Chabrier for Erato/Warner Classics. He has also recorded three CDs with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, including the «Chichester Psalms» and the Third Symphony, «Kaddish», by Leonard Bernstein. The Tonkunstler Orchestra’s own label, established in 2016, has released his recordings of «Ein Heldenleben» and the «Rosenkavalier» Suite by Richard Strauss, the three «Day» symphonies by Joseph Haydn and Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, «Romantic».

Tonkünstler-Orchester
With its residencies at the Musikverein Wien, Festspielhaus St. Pölten and in Grafenegg, the Tonkunstler Orchestra is one of Austria’s biggest and most important musical ambassadors. The focus of the orchestra’s artistic work is the traditional orchestral repertoire, ranging from the classical to the Romantic period through to the 20th century. At the same time, the Tonkunstler see the promotion of contemporary music as among their highest duties. Yutaka Sado, one of the most important Japanese conductors of our time, has been the orchestra’s Music Director since the 2015-16 season. To mark the opening of the 10th Grafenegg Festival in August 2016, his contract with the Tonkunstler was extended until summer 2022.

The Tonkunstler’s unique approach to programming is appreciated by musicians, audiences and the press alike. The inclusion of genres such as jazz and world music as part of the «Plugged-In» series, which has entered its eleventh year, keeps the orchestra in touch with the pulse of modern life. Performances of works by contemporary composers make the Tonkunstler a key player on the current music scene. Each year, a composer in residence collaborates with the orchestra for the Grafenegg Festival. So far these have included Brett Dean, HK Gruber, Krzysztof Penderecki, Jörg Widmann, Matthias Pintscher and Christian Jost. Composers such as Arvo Pärt, Kurt Schwertsik, Friedrich Cerha and Bernd Richard Deutsch have written commissioned works for the orchestra.

The Tonkunstler are the only Austrian symphony orchestra to boast three residencies. The traditional Sunday Afternoon concerts at the Musikverein Wien go back nearly 70 years and remain the Tonkunstler’s most successful concert cycle to date. The Festspielhaus St. Pölten was officially opened by the Tonkunstler on 1 March 1997. Since then, as resident orchestra, their opera, dance and educational projects, as well as an extensive range of concerts, have formed an integral part of the overall cultural repertoire in the Lower Austrian state capital.

In Grafenegg, the Tonkunstler have two acoustically outstanding venues at their disposal in their capacity as festival orchestra: the Auditorium and the Wolkenturm. The latter was officially opened by the Tonkunstler. Each year, the Midsummer Night’s Gala – broadcast on radio and TV in Austria as well as in several other European countries – opens the summer season in Grafenegg.

The political and social events and upheavals of the 20th century have left their mark on the orchestra’s history. The first concert by the Wiener Tonkünstler-Orchester took place in Musikverein Wien in October 1907, with 83 musicians performing. The impressive trio of conductors that night were Oskar Nedbal, a student of Dvořák, Bernhard Stavenhagen, a student of Franz Liszt, and Hans Pfitzner.

The Tonkunstler gave the first performance of Arnold Schönberg’s «Gurre-Lieder» under the direction of Franz Schreker in 1913. Wilhelm Furtwängler was principal conductor from 1919 to 1923. In the years that followed, the orchestra worked with such renowned conductors as Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Felix Weingartner, Hans Knappertsbusch and Hermann Abendroth.

The Tonkunstler have been the state symphony orchestra of Lower Austria since 1945. Year after year they have fulfilled the cultural, artistic and educational mandate this entails through their extensive range of concerts at various locations across the region, including the New Year’s concert series, through music education projects and their commitment to contemporary music in Lower Austria. In 2003 the Tonkunstler were the first Austrian orchestra to establish a department for music education. The «Tonspiele» («Sound Games») represent one of the most extensive music education programmes in Austria.

Former Music Directors of the Tonkunstler include such important figures of the music world as Walter Weller, Heinz Wallberg, Miltiades Caridis, Fabio Luisi and Kristjan Järvi. The orchestra’s guest conductors are another important source of artistic stimulus. Globally recognised orchestra directors including Michael Schønwandt, Jun Märkl, Jeffrey Tate, Hugh Wolff, Giovanni Antonini, Krzysztof Urbanski, Dmitrij Kitajenko and John Storgårds have repeatedly worked with the Tonkunstler, some of them over many years.

Soloists who have collaborated with the orchestra include Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato, Angelika Kirchschlager, Lisa Batiashvili, Sol Gabetta and Michael Schade as well as pianists Rudolf Buchbinder, Fazıl Say, Kit Armstrong and Lang Lang. Violin virtuosos such as Daniel Hope, Christian Tetzlaff, Augustin Hadelich and Julia Fischer as well as oboist Albrecht Mayer and harpist Xavier de Maistre have performed with the Tonkunstler.

Recent tours have taken the Tonkunstler to Germany, Great Britain, Spain, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, the Baltic States and, repeatedly, to Japan. In May 2016 they completed a three-week tour of Japan led by Music Director Yutaka Sado, with fourteen concerts in the country’s most prestigious concert halls. Also under the direction of Yutaka Sado, the Tonkunstler will play eight concerts in six British cities, including London, Manchester, Nottingham and Edinburgh, from 24 February to 5 March 2017. The next Japanese tour, in May 2018, is already being planned.

A wide range of CD recordings reflects the orchestra’s versatile artistic profile. Founded in 2016, the Tonkunstler’s own label has already issued three CDs with Music Director Yutaka Sado: Richard Strauss’s «Heldenleben» and «Rosenkavalier» suite as in-house productions and Joseph Haydn’s three «Day» symphonies and Anton Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony as live recordings from the Wiener Musikverein.

The Tonkunstler’s complete cycle of the Brahms symphonies, recorded with former Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada on the German label OehmsClassics in March 2015, was a résumé of their many years of collaboration. They had previously issued recordings of Felix Mendelssohn’s five symphonies as well as Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony and the «Symphonie fantastique» by Hector Berlioz, also conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada. With Kristjan Järvi, the Tonkunstler played Leonard Bernstein’s «Mass», Joseph Haydn’s Paris Symphonies and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in Gustav Mahler’s arrangement.

Also available are Mendelssohn’s «A Midsummer Night’s Dream», Schumann’s «Manfred», Franz Schmidt’s «The Book with Seven Seals», «Desert Music» by Steve Reich and «Zeitstimmung»/«Rough Music» by HK Gruber. 2012 saw the release of the CD «ZEIT:PUNKTE» with works commissioned from Austrian composers.

The orchestra are a regular radio fixture with the programme «Tonkünstler» on the last Thursday evening of every month. ORF Radio Niederösterreich offers a preview of the Tonkunstler’s upcoming musical highlights and information on their current projects. The book «Die Tonkünstler. Orchester-Geschichten aus Wien und Niederösterreich» («The Tonkunstler: Orchestral Stories from Vienna and Lower Austria») was published in 2007 to mark the orchestra’s 100th anniversary. Contributions from Otto Biba, Ernst Kobau, Philipp Stein, Markus Hennerfeind, Wilhelm Sinkovicz, Walter Weidringer and editor Rainer Lepuschitz cast light on aspects of Austrian orchestral history that had previously been undocumented or little known.

Booklet for Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-Flat Major, WAB 104 'Romantic'