When I compiled this list, I tried as much as possible to have no preconceived ideas on any particular conductors or orchestras. I even asked my family to randomly choose some CDs and played them for me as a blind test. This practice had an added fun element in it -- I could try to guess who the conductor or what the orchestra was after jotting down my impressions.
At this point I have to thank my beloved wife Flora for her understanding and adopting a laissez-faire attitude towards my seemingly endless, lavish act of acquiring these CDs one after another.
It is natural that my choices are only restricted to those recordings I've listened to. My collection consists almost entirely of official commercial releases. However, I do have some CDs from pirate labels, but they amounted to less than 30 and were purchased long ago for special reasons, e.g. before the EMI releases of Celibidache's recordings, or recordings from conductors I like very much. They are from Arkadia, Audior, Bells of St. Florian, and a couple more which I cannot recall at this moment. On the other hand, I've never had CDs from labels like Dirigent, Antec Music, En Larme, etc. Apart from that there must be many commercial releases that I do not own. So there is no pretension whatsoever to exhaustiveness.
At this point I have to thank my beloved wife Flora for her understanding and adopting a laissez-faire attitude towards my seemingly endless, lavish act of acquiring these CDs one after another.
It is natural that my choices are only restricted to those recordings I've listened to. My collection consists almost entirely of official commercial releases. However, I do have some CDs from pirate labels, but they amounted to less than 30 and were purchased long ago for special reasons, e.g. before the EMI releases of Celibidache's recordings, or recordings from conductors I like very much. They are from Arkadia, Audior, Bells of St. Florian, and a couple more which I cannot recall at this moment. On the other hand, I've never had CDs from labels like Dirigent, Antec Music, En Larme, etc. Apart from that there must be many commercial releases that I do not own. So there is no pretension whatsoever to exhaustiveness.
Everyone knows that all favourite lists are personal. They depend on the taste of the compiler and they differ in 'objectivity' only in a matter of degree. No lists will be purely objective, but some lists can be purely subjective. And I hope mine is somewhere in between.
My list will inevitably include some well-regarded recordings: they are considered as such for good reasons. But my list also includes some conductors who may not be the first names to come to mind as Brucknerians, but their recordings, especially some live performances, are believed to be ones that any serious Brucknerite will beseech.
Remember in episode 2 I mentioned that some conductors were not included in this list because their Bruckner recordings were considered in a league of their own: Furtwängler, Celibidache, Tintner and Wand in his Berlin Philharmonic recordings.
I'll begin with Bruckner Symphony No. 3 in D minor.
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