During his tenure as conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, Juanjo Mena recorded mostly Spanish music. The exception was this version of Bruckner's Symphony No. 6 in A major, WAB 106, recorded in 2012 but not released until 2021. No explanation is given for the long time lag, which may have been related to a shortage of product during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it could also serve as a nice valedictory item for Mena, who has moved on to the Cincinnati May Festival and Orquesta Nacional de España. Mena made the Bruckner Sixth a ...
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During his tenure as conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, Juanjo Mena recorded mostly Spanish music. The exception was this version of Bruckner's Symphony No. 6 in A major, WAB 106, recorded in 2012 but not released until 2021. No explanation is given for the long time lag, which may have been related to a shortage of product during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it could also serve as a nice valedictory item for Mena, who has moved on to the Cincinnati May Festival and Orquesta Nacional de España. Mena made the Bruckner Sixth a specialty, conducting it with the BBC Philharmonic and other orchestras, and his familiarity with this often gnarly score shows in this reading. Listen to the wonderful opening, with the strings at the border of inaudibility and then slowly growing. Mena's style is appropriately clean in this most Classical of Bruckner's symphonies, and his tempos are moderate, not approaching the blistering speeds of Thomas Dausgaard and the Bergen Philharmonic in another recording from roughly the...
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