‘To me, Bruckner is one of the greatest composers,’ says conductor Stanisław Skrowaczewski. ‘He is another Mozart: his music is magical ... its message speaks about the infinite, transcendental cosmos, God, timelessness, love and tragedy.’ The opening melody of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony apparently came to the composer in a dream: a friend from Bruckner’s younger days played the theme on a viola, with the words: ‘This will bring you success’. If this is true it was prophetic: the work was one of the greatest successes of the composer’s career.

Stanisław Skrowaczewski is regarded as one of today’s greatest living Bruckner conductors. Now in his 90th year, he brings a lifetime’s accumulated wisdom to this work.

This Symphony had a life-changing significance for Skrowaczewski. Aged seven, he heard some distinctive but unfamiliar music drifting out of the upstairs window of a house he passed, to dramatic effect: ‘It was such an impression that I became really out of my mind ... I had a high temperature, so all this proves really deep shock – and this stays forever’. This was Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7. In 2011 Skrowaczewski’s biography was published: Seeking the Infinite by Frederick Edward Harris Jr., in which the conductor discusses at length his lifelong devotion to the music of Bruckner.

This performance is of Skrowaczewski’s own edition, based on the Haas edition but including the triangle and cymbal clash at the climax of the Adagio.