In 2020, Hansjörg Albrecht began recording Anton Bruckner's symphonies transcribed for organ. This year, coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth, he caps his Bruckner Project with the release of a CD box set containing all the symphonies in the Bruckner organ cycle.
The massive project was first suggested by the director of classical music label, Oehms Classics. Albrecht subsequently contacted Bruckner specialist Erwin Horn to make transcriptions of the Romantic composer's first symphonies, which was followed by transcriptions from Thomas Schmoegner and Eberhard Klotz, as well as Gerd Schaller's finale for the Symphony No. 9, which Albrecht released earlier this year.
He is no stranger to Bruckner's symphonies, being both a conductor and an organist. He is also aware of Bruckner's career on the organ, for which the composer was known before attaining symphonic success. Albrecht writes on his website: "[Bruckner] was known throughout Europe for his virtuoso playing and received invitations to concert tours to France, England and Switzerland, among other places.
In London he played to more than 70,000 people and at his concert in Notre Dame de Paris fellow composers...cheered Bruckner's symphonic organ improvisations." He embarked on the project with the intention of showing Bruckner "in all his glory as a master of the 'Queen of Instruments.'"
The transcriptions were recorded in various locations, including Munich, Lucerne, Zurich, and Vienna-all cities where Bruckner lived and worked. Each album opens with a short orchestral piece by Bruckner, followed by what Albrecht has dubbed a Bruckner Window: a work by a contemporary composer who continues to be influenced by Bruckner, in recognition of how his forward-looking music prepared the way for composers of the 20th century. This then leads to the crowning jewel of the album: a Bruckner symphony transcribed for organ.
The Bruckner Project was completed under the patronage of Christian Thielemann, principal conductor of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden. He calls it an "epochal project," saying: "You wouldn't want to hear a Beethoven symphony on organ. Or Brahms, but Bruckner makes sense."
