Fate Chorus TACL-001-10The "Fate Chorus" Asahina Bruckner Symphony Cycle

I bought this "Fate Chorus" CD set on Ebay purely out of curiosity. The cover states clearly that this is a Bruckner cycle featuring Takashi Asahina and the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra. It appeared to be a pirate copy of either the Canyon CD set or the earlier Jean-Jean CD set. The plastic case was manufactured by UniKeep in the USA. Inside, each CD is housed in a plastic sleeve and on the overleaf, there are nice photos of Asahina. There is text in Japanese on the back of each photograph, but the Japanese text translates to musical subjects that have nothing to do with either Bruckner nor Asahina. The CDs inside have text in Japanese and English that is printed directly onto the disc. In spite of the credits given on the cover, Symphony No. 2 is credited on the CD to the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and Symphony No. 4 is credited to the New Japan Philharmonic. But as you will see later, that becomes totally irrelevant. There is additional vertical Japanese text on each CD label that translates to "Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra / Schwartzkopf / Hengen / Hopf / Edelmann." Apparently, this text was left over from an earlier CD production of the Furtwangler 1951 recording of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. But here is where things really get strange: Except for Symphony No. 1, the timings on these performances did not match any Asahina performances. Using Shazam software, I scanned the recordings and here are the true performers: 1) Asahina // Osaka Philharmonic // Canyon 2) Zanotelli // South German Philharmonic // Point -- (actually Eric Schmid / SWF SO) 3) Rozhdestvensky // Moscow Radio Symphony Orch. // Moscow Radio 4) Horvat // ORF Symphony Orchestra // ORF 5) Rozhdestvensky // USSR Ministry of Culture Orch. // Melodiya 6) Lopes-Cobos // Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra // Telarc 7) Lopes-Cobos // Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra // Telarc 8) Rozhdestvensky // USSR Ministry of Culture Orch. // Melodiya 9) Lopes-Cobos // Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra // Telarc 0) Inbal // Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra // Teldec So, it is a complete mixed bag. Admittedly, they are all good performnces and in good sound, but certainly not a good introduction to the artistry of Takashi Asahina!!