Part of a mini-series within ‘Zubin Mehta: The Decca Years’ celebrating the vintage recordings he made for Decca. Here is the popular ‘Romantic’ Symphony coupled with a wondrous performance of the Prelude to the first act of ‘Meistersinger’.
ANTON BRUCKNER
Symphony No. 4 in E flat major ‘Romantic’
RICHARD WAGNER
Die Meistersinger: Prelude to Act I
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (Bruckner)
Wiener Philharmoniker (Wagner)
Zubin Mehta
Recording Producers: Ray Minshull (Bruckner); Christopher Raeburn (Wagner)
Recording Engineers: Gordon Parry, Colin Moorfoot (Bruckner); Gordon Parry (Wagner)
Recording Locations: Royce Hall, Los Angeles, USA, 13 April 1970 (Bruckner); Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, 2 & 13 January 1966
‘The Decca engineers have now certainly got the measure of Royce Hall, Los Angeles, with rich reverberation wrapping round the bald Brucknerian textures […] I have never before known this music sound so like Wagner. […] In all four movements Mehta with his suave style is a degree more extrovert [than the versions by Kertesz and Haitink]’ (Bruckner) Gramophone