Globalisation, in terms of international orchestral performing standards, seems to be the high tide which has lifted many boats! Excellent Bruckner performances are no longer the exclusive domain of the illustrious ensembles of Berlin, Vienna, Leipzig, Dresden and Amsterdam. Last year I reviewed a persuasive Bruckner Five with Philippe Herreweghe and the Champs-Elysées forces – an orchestra of only 68!

Donald Runnicles had critics diving for the thesaurus with his 2012 Proms Bruckner Eight (which he also conducted in Sydney a few weeks earlier) with the BBC Scottish Orchestra. His flair for maintaining lucid textures while blending different orchestral voices was singled out for particular praise, as they are here in Bruckner’s Seventh. That said, however, I take issue with the Guardian reviewer who spoke of this performance as expansive. At 60 minutes? You must be joking! Even Solti, who rarely stopped to smell the flowers, managed to take 70 minutes in his second recording.

Runnicles provides an uneccentric account. The stopwatch can be an unreliable ally, especially here where, paradoxically, his tempi don’t actually sound as swift as the overall duration would indicate. They are also well integrated and the gradation of the climaxes. His ability to know how and when to keep his powder dry is certainly impressive, but somehow, part of me just longs for touches of individuality. One reviewer described Runnicles’ Bruckner as possessing “structural rigour.” Quite so, but I feel this often militates against the emergence of ‘vision’. I realize that that’s become a rather loaded expression, but in my experience it is an essential element in all the genuinely great Bruckner performances. It’s not that Runnicles and his crack ensemble (and, make no mistake – that’s what they are here) are just “trim, taut and terrific”; it’s just that they lack the gravitas of old schoolconductors like Jochum and Karajan. Impressive nonetheless.