Following the first three CDs in the Böck reads Bruckner series, which were dedicated to the composer’s period in Upper Austria, his existence as a perpetual bachelor on the lookout for a wife, and his veneration of Richard Wagner, this fourth of five readings with music now turns its focus–again with a cast of readers–to the relationship between Bruckner and the sharp-tongued yet stylistically brilliant critic Eduard Hanslick. Through letters and reviews, it highlights how Hanslick’s writings in the second half of the 19th century exerted a dominant influence on the entire Viennese musical world. However, six of his own songs, interwoven into the performance, also reveal him as a composer in his own right. In this fourth instalment of the series, Wolfgang Böck and Thomas Thieme, recitation, Elisabeth Wimmer, soprano, and Daniel Linton-France, piano, transport the audience into the fascinating world of Anton Bruckner in an incomparably authentic manner.