The passage of time has hardly depreciated this set of Bruckner symphonies, recorded during the late 1950s and 1960s, which has been reissued at full price here in improved packaging -- 9 CDs in sleeves in a slimline box, an improvement over the old three 3-CD cases that were often sold separately at resale shops.

The late romantic Wagner-influenced symphonies by Anton Bruckner were not always accepted critically on their first performance. Viennese critics and members of the ultraconservative, competing Brahms camp derided Bruckner's lengthy symphonic treatises, characterizing his Symphony No. 8 as a "symphonic boa constrictor."

While Germans accepted the Bruckner symphonic canon as part of the standard repertory for a century, the rest of the world had to wait for the post World War II LP era to hear them all. Today, all nine symphonies -- as well as Bruckner's Symphonies Nos. 0, or "Nulte", and the so-called "Study" symphony -- have been accepted by the musicgoing public.

Beloved by fans for his achingly beautiful adagios -- the adagio from the Symphony No. 7 was played in Berlin after Adolf Hitler's death was announced -- Bruckner's symphonies can touch the heart while confusing the brain. For these and other reasons, the composer often re-wrote the scores, leaving behind many editions, most of which have appeared in recent years.

For a couple generations of 78, LP, tape, CD and now download fans, Eugen Jochum (1902-87) was among the more reliable guides through the peaks and valleys of Bruckner. He combined the better traits of Wilhelm Furtwangler (romantic phraseologic elasticity) with Karajan (literalist power and Germanic heft) and has influenced many later Bruckner conductors including Petri Sakari.

Jochum does this with a magical approach to the composer's granitic music; unpredicatable and always appropriate is the way to describe his approach. His work capitalizes on the misterioso elements so often caught in the transition between Bruckner's loud and soft parts, all the while adhering to the composer's orchestration built on organ registrations.

Among other qualities, Jochum is the most unusual and unique of major Bruckner interpreters. Unlike Gunther Wand, he does not always project Bruckner's beloved Alps in this music. Unlike Georg Solti, he senses the inate beauty and religious fervor of the music. Unlike Georg Tintner, he does not concern himself with scores, even though Jochum was a close friend of a Bruckner annotator. Unlike Karajan, he is not wedded to a traditional German approach to the symphonic edifices. Only Furtwangler, in recordings that stress the 21st Century ear, compares to Jochum as a Bruckner interpreter.

Jochum recorded the complete symphonies of Bruckner again later in life and that set is still available on the EMI label. In addtion, there are various other single and double CDs available of his work. While Jochum's second set on EMI enjoys better sound and a better Symphony 8, the playing is inferior and the overall concept less well defined that what he achieved in Berlin and Bavaria. For me, this earlier German set is the one to live with.

In the four decades since he recorded these titanic symphonies, no record, tape, CD or download has equalled the majesty and mystery Jochum finds in the Symphonies 1 and 2. He brings to them an unerring sense of pace, anticipation and freed musical pulse characterize these early symphonies, which are often not well served by even the greatest conductors. In addition, few conductors sense the architecture Jochum constructs in Symphonies 6 and 8. And since Furtwangler's death in 1954, no conductor has compared to the universal truths he projects in Symphony 5, a Jochum specialty that he recorded a half-dozen times.

What else makes Jochum special? While many conductors turn Bruckner's symphonic ascensions into repetitive blather, Jochum always finds something new to say in repeating phrases -- not unlike opening the drawers of a cabinet, each appearing exactly the same outside but containing something very different on the inside. This is the difference between expert Bruckner advocacy and interpretation and reading the score.

Jochum is hardly alone as a fine Bruckner interpreter. Another German, Gunther Wand, tunred in many marvelous recordings and his entire set of symphonies from Cologne can still be had. There have been two fine low-priced sets of Bruckner symphonies in recent years, those conducted by the late Georg Tintner and the one conducted by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. The Tintner version enjoys special status with many critics because it uses a newer edition of the score by William Carragan, who has written extensively about the composer in American Record Guide. The Skrowaczewski set has been widely hailed by its diehard fans for its straightforwardness and its mix of persuasion and power.

Among higher priced sets, the one led by Daniel Barenboim, his second complete set of Bruckner symphonies since the 1970s, has also enjoyed some commercial and critical success in recent years. Karajan's classic set in Berlin has retained its following for several decades, as well. Other conductors, including Knappertsbusch and Haitink, have enjoyed mixed succesds in this repertoire.

Two recent "new" old sets in mono -- one partial and one complete -- are also worth mention. Wilhelm Furtwangler, who was without question the greatest Brucknerian in the mono recording era, is well-represented by a partial set released by Music and Arts a few years back Furtwangler Conducts Bruckner: Symphonies 4,5,6,7,8,9. This is a Bruckner conductor with no peer whose insights will probably never be matched in this or any othe century. Another old set from a virtually unknown Swiss conductor, Volkmar Andreae, is also worth your consideration Syms 1-9/Te Deum. Both of these sets show more insights into Bruckner than any of Skrowaczewski, Karajan, Barenboim or Tintner, probably because both conductors were born in the century in which Bruckner lived.

Even with competition like this -- some in extraordinary DDD sound (there is no SACD set of Bruckner symphonies yet) -- I believe the Jochum set on DG remains your top choice in this wonderful music about birth, life, travails, death and afterlife. If you are dedicated to acquiring a uniform set of Bruckner symphonies and you find the sound of Furtwangler's 1950s recordings inadequate, you will never hear better than Jochum in this set.