Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 – Edition Staatskapelle Dresden – Vol. 31

Live Recording Semperoper Dresden September 2009.

Thielemann favours a monumental approach to Bruckner…The sublime slow movement is quite glorious…Any lover of this great work will want to add this issue to their collection. — BBC Music Magazine, December 2010, 4 out of 5 stars

“In this work Thielemann opened many a door and window, showing the astonished audience what beautiful things lie behind them that are beyond verbal description … Perhaps the discovery and wonderful musical realization of these beauties is the real surprise in this great concert.” (Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten)

“It was that single minute that decided everything. When the last notes of Bruckner’s Eighth had died away at the end of Christian Thielemann’s magnificent guest performance as conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle, a silence that enfolded hundreds lasted an endless minute before the applause broke out like a thunderstorm. In precisely that minute of silence for the beauty of music in the Semperoper on September 13, Thielemann probably made his decision to come to Dresden as principal conductor”. (Die Zeit)