Carnegie Hall 2011-2012 Season

[bhodges]

As usual, some great stuff!  Lots of Saariaho, plus Gergiev and the Mariinsky doing all the Tchaikovsky symphonies--and the Cleveland Orchestra in a concert version of Salome.

--Bruce

[MishaK]

Thanks for the heads up!

I have to say, hearing Rattle conduct Bruckner 9 with the Berliners a few years ago was easily one of the least satisfying Bruckner experiences I've ever had, but given that in the meantime his relationship with the orchestra seems to have improved and the fact that he's conducting the new Cohrs completion of the finale makes his Feb. 2012 appearance potentially interesting.

[Superhorn]

   Great! It's about time more top conductors started to do the completed finale.
   I hope it will be recorded.
    So far, there have been recordings using a version of the finale by Yoav Talmi,the late Kurt Eichhorn,Eliahu Inbal, Daniel Harding, Johannes Wildner, and a few others,
but Barenboim, Maazel, Abbado, Masur, Haitink, Mehta, Nagano, Skrowaczewski, Welser-Most and other top Brucknerians have yet to do it,which is too bad.
   I'm no longer satisfied with hearing only the first three movements.Not every one likes the finale, but I'm convinced that there is no longer any reason for any conductor who does it live or records it not to. The torso version of Berg''s Lulu is not done any more now that Friedrich Cerha completed the opera.It's the same with the Bruckner 9th as far as I'm concerned.

[Superhorn]

   I haven't heard either of Rattle's recordings of Bruckner so far,(the 4rth and 7th), but would like to hear him conduct this composer.I see no reason why he could not be a fine Brucknerian.

[MishaK]

   I haven't heard either of Rattle's recordings of Bruckner so far,(the 4rth and 7th), but would like to hear him conduct this composer.I see no reason why he could not be a fine Brucknerian.

The 4th is not really good. It's not totally bad, after all it's the BPO, but it really doesn't go anywhere at all. Total waste of money given that you can hear that orchestra give far more compelling performances with Wand and Barenboim. I heard Rattle do the 9th (sans finale) with the BPO in approximately 2003 on tour in Frankfurt and it was really the most disappointing Rattle performance I have heard. Completely aimless and marred by some inadequate ensemble coordination, especially in the brass.

But after a slew of duds in the German romantic repertoire Rattle and BPO turned out a quite magnificent Brahms cycle, at least as far as the first two symphonies, and the inner movements of the later two are concerned. So who knows? I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he's developed as a Brucknerian in the meantime.

[Wendell_E]

The torso version of Berg''s Lulu is not done any more now that Friedrich Cerha completed the opera.

Not true, unfortunately.  The two-act version will be done next month in Halle, and has been done in recent seasons by Berg's home-town company, the Vienna State Opera, though their most recent Peter Stein production goes back to the three-act version.  The Universal Edition website also lists recent two-act productions in Hamburg, Zürich, Graz, Finland, and the Netherlands. 

Lulu was essentially complete from first bar to last at the time of Berg's death.  Cerha's work consisted of orchestration and adding in missing vocal lines in ensembles where Berg had already completed the orchestral and major vocal lines.  Had Bruckner gotten that far with the finale to the 9th?  I really, don't know, I'm just asking.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Lulu was essentially complete from first bar to last at the time of Berg's death.  Cerha's work consisted of orchestration and adding in missing vocal lines in ensembles where Berg had already completed the orchestral and major vocal lines.  Had Bruckner gotten that far with the finale to the 9th?  I really, don't know, I'm just asking.

Not as far as I've read, which is as good a rebuttal to Superhorn as any.

It's good to hear Mensch was disappointed in Rattle's B9 too. I heard him do it at the Philharmonie in 2002, and was wondering why I just couldn't feel involved in the performance - thought it was just me.

[MishaK]

Not as far as I've read, which is as good a rebuttal to Superhorn as any.

Do you have Harnoncourt's B9 with the VPO? Apart from being a fine recording, the second disc features a performance of the (then known) remaining original bits of the finale with a (bilingual English/German) lecture by Harnoncourt on what is missing. There is essentially quite a lot that is there and is original Bruckner. What is missing for the most part are a few harmonic transitions from one section to another, as well as what Bruckner apparently intended to be a massive fugue at the end of the finale, superimposing not only the main themes of the preceding movements, but also themes from the 5th, 7th and 8th symphonies. That part is anybody's guess what that was supposed to sound like. It is my understanding that in the intervening time, more original fragments have been discovered in various attics (it was known that more of the finale actually existed but was stolen by friends and acquaintances at Bruckner's deathbed as a memento), which explains the various Cohrs/Mazzuca/Semele revisions of the finale. Between the time that Talmi, Wildner, Harding and Bosch made their recordings of the completion a lot of research was done, so that none of those actually are performances of the same version.

[bhodges]

Thanks for the heads up!

I have to say, hearing Rattle conduct Bruckner 9 with the Berliners a few years ago was easily one of the least satisfying Bruckner experiences I've ever had, but given that in the meantime his relationship with the orchestra seems to have improved and the fact that he's conducting the new Cohrs completion of the finale makes his Feb. 2012 appearance potentially interesting.

Yes, I'm quite curious to hear the Bruckner--however it turns out.  (Haven't heard Rattle in any Bruckner that I recall, either live or recorded.)

Speaking of Chicago ( ), I notice a big vacancy in the Carnegie schedule: no CSO, with either Boulez, Haitink, or Muti!    Not happy about that, since their concerts here are among my favorites of the entire year.

--Bruce

[MishaK]

Speaking of Chicago ( ), I notice a big vacancy in the Carnegie schedule: no CSO, with either Boulez, Haitink, or Muti!    Not happy about that, since their concerts here are among my favorites of the entire year.

Yes, I noticed that. Outrageous!  I hear they will be doing a West Coast tour instead. Full season announcement is due out in Feb. You'll be hearing them soon (is it next month?) with Muti anyway.

[SonicMan46]

Hi Bruce - thanks for the link; really like the format (although it took a few minutes to understand how to negotiate the options!).

Susan & I may need to make a trip to NYC this fall or the spring of 2012 - will probably concentrate more on looking at the chamber music programs, but I'll tell her to take a look - we get 'Big Apple' withdrawal about every 2-3 yrs! 

Dave - 

[bhodges]

Yes, I noticed that. Outrageous!  I hear they will be doing a West Coast tour instead. Full season announcement is due out in Feb. You'll be hearing them soon (is it next month?) with Muti anyway.

Yes [look of mock horror], who's in charge of programming over there?  Time to write a long, complaining letter. 

And yes, Muti is coming with them in April.  The Clyne program also includes Varèse's Arcana and the Shostakovich Fifth, but I'm also really excited by the concert version of Verdi's Otello.

And Dave, by all means, you and Susan come back sooner, rather than later! 

--Bruce

[kishnevi]

   Great! It's about time more top conductors started to do the completed finale.
   I hope it will be recorded.
    So far, there have been recordings using a version of the finale by Yoav Talmi,the late Kurt Eichhorn,Eliahu Inbal, Daniel Harding, Johannes Wildner, and a few others,
but Barenboim, Maazel, Abbado, Masur, Haitink, Mehta, Nagano, Skrowaczewski, Welser-Most and other top Brucknerians have yet to do it,which is too bad.
   I'm no longer satisfied with hearing only the first three movements.Not every one likes the finale, but I'm convinced that there is no longer any reason for any conductor who does it live or records it not to. The torso version of Berg''s Lulu is not done any more now that Friedrich Cerha completed the opera.It's the same with the Bruckner 9th as far as I'm concerned.

There's plenty of reason not to perform or record a completion of the Ninth: we have no idea of how Bruckner would have actually completed it.

Mahler's 10th is a good parallel case.   We have, via the short scores,  a good idea of what Mahler intended, with all the pieces in place, linked together with no fragments needing to be put into place like a jigsaw puzzle.    What we don't have is the orchestration of the last four movements, and that has been enough to convince a good many people that only the Adagio, the one completed movement, should be played, if any part of the 10th is to be played at all.  There have been several excellent performing versions produced, but some important conductors remain unconvinced.  For recent examples,  both Thomas and Gergiev have recorded only the Adagio for their cycles .