Christian Thielemann’s Bruckner cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra continues apace with this refined performance of the Ninth Symphony, recorded live during the Salzburg Festival last summer. As in his 2015 video recording of the symphony with the Staatskapelle Dresden, Thielemann maintains uniform tempos throughout all three movements, although the interpretation this time is swifter overall by several minutes. The performance is most notable, however, for the superb quality of the Viennese playing, which leads the listener through page after page of the score with a hypnotic mix of sensitivity, expressiveness and tonal allure. Sony’s engineering is very fine, too, providing a slightly distanced impression of the orchestra while excluding any trace of audience noise.

If the value of a recording were determined solely by the contribution of the orchestra, this would be a top recommendation. As in Dresden, however, Thielemann delivers a performance that doesn’t match the depth of feeling conductors such as Barenboim, Furtwängler, Karajan and Wand achieve in the work’s cataclysmic outer movements. For anyone wishing to hear the Vienna Philharmonic at its remarkable best in this symphony, Giulini’s version for DG remains hard to beat.