Wiener Philharmoniker

«In that springtime urge which carries people away into old age and overtakes them anew every year»: it was in this spirit that Robert Schumann wrote his radiant First. No wonder, as his «Spring Symphony» was composed during the happiest period of his life, shortly after his marriage to his beloved Clara Wieck. Conversely, Anton Bruckner's First Symphony - his «cheeky little fellow» - spans a grand arc from the spring to late autumn in the composer's career. Composed in Linz, the Vienna version he made 25 years later is here championed by Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic. At once defiant and serenely monumental, it yields the first great rewards from Bruckner's canon.