Bruckner's Abbey

[calyptorhynchus]

I've just tried the experiment of following a suggestion of Robert Simpson's, which is that although the 1873 version of the Third Symphony is, in Simpson's view (and mine) the best one, the last part of the Adagio,the reappearance of the main theme, final climax and coda, is better in the 1878 version.

I got mp3s of two Adagio versions, one 1873 and the other 1878 and cut the end off the former and extracted the final section from the latter and combined the two using audio editing software (very easy).

I'm impressed with it, as it is not something that you are ever likely to hear in the concert hall or on CD, you should try it too.

[bhodges]

For anyone who loves Boulez's Bruckner 8 (I do), here's a live Bruckner 9, which I didn't know existed, recorded in 2001 at the Salzburg Festival. Happy New Year! (Or for some, "Bruce, you really must hate me."  )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9yVhn1mxzg

--Bruce

[bhodges]

Just found out Medici.tv is showing the first 3 Bruckner symphonies live from the Paris Philharmonie -- today, Friday, and Saturday -- with Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin:

Today, 3:30 (EST): Bruckner 1
Friday, 3:30: Bruckner 2
Saturday, 3:30: Bruckner 3

--Bruce

[Brian]

"If I Were to Play Trombone on a Bruckner Symphony", a vivid and quite amusing poem by conductor Kenneth Woods

[calyptorhynchus]

On Friday BBC Radio 3 broadcast a concert from the Scottish Symphony Orchestra of the Ninth with the SPCM performing version of the finale.

The audience seemed to like it and it worked very well in live performance. Good to see the finale getting an airing now and then.

[André]

The choice of a Bruckner 3 version is probably the most delicate, difficult and in the end, unsatisfying question that still baffles and divides Bruckner lovers.

Basically, there are 3 versions: 1873, 1878 and 1889. Reminder: a version is one of Bruckner's texts. An edition (for ex: "ed. Nowak" or "ed. Haas") is one of Bruckner's versions with the editor's corrections, amendments etc. Sometimes a "Nowak" and a "Haas" edition are similar, sometimes they differ. That is another problem.

When we talk about 1873, 1877 and 1889 we're basically talking about 3 very different texts. Other composers struggled with their musical thoughts (Prokofiev in his 4th symphony for example), but few composers went to such lengths as Bruckner did in his efforts to give the world his best shot. In itself, that blunt fact should caution us to handle the options at hand with care: after all, each was the product of a great composer's best thoughts and intentions.

Step # 1 is to realize that 1877 is basically the same text as 1889, but with more connecting tissue, esp. in the finale. Therefore the coda of IV doesn't seem to "come from the left field" so much. BTW I think it's a quite fair description of the effect many recordings of 1889 make. Not all, though: some conductors have a better handle on this than others. Hint: they take a slower, more massive approach in the finale.

Step # 2 is to realize that, although very compelling, envelopping - and painstakingly developped - as it is, the 1873 text, sometimes referred to as the "original" version, is also more intractable and difficult to entangle. There is a reason for that: Bruckner had encapsulated and amalgamated into his own compositional idiom various wagnerian quotes and sometimes clumsy bridging material. Eventually he came to the realization that these glued-together "homages to the Master" didn't jive with his own sound world and proceeded to revise the score. The end product was to excise all the Wagner quotes and "reconnect" the bleeding parts.

Step # 3 is to come to terms with the composer's conundrum and realize that there will never be a definitive choice of texts. They all have their merits. I agree that the composer's final solution is unsatisfactory in the finale. Too many cuts. Too many seams. But this is the text that was accepted for decades (until roughly 1980) and for which we have quite a few outstanding recordings: Böhm, Sanderling, Knappertsbusch in Munich and Berlin, Wand in Cologne, Maazel in Munich or Berlin. Lest it sound heretical, I will rate Maazel's Munich recording of the 1889 score (recorded as recently as 2012) as one of the most satisfying Bruckner recordings ever made.

Personally, I think that, in this work, multiple recordings are mandatory. There are outstanding and meh interpretations of each of the composer's takes on this work. Personally I gravitate more toward the "intermediate" 1878 version (sometimes known as the Oeser text). It is more orotund than 1889 and less obese than 1873. Bernard Haitink (RCOA 1963) is the earliest exponent on records. His later, slower, much weightier WP recording (both on Philips) is also a favourite. Kubelik and Solti also recorded it.

Nézet-Séguin's Dresden concert ("original" 1873 version) is highly touted. I haven't heard it. I was in the hall when the ATMA recording engineeers captured his second recording in Montreal a couple of years ago. It's a typical YNS thing: powerful and probing yet highly detailed. A very good interpretation, in splendid sound. Considering the 1873 "original" is still relatively new, it will take some time before that text becomes as familiar to the public as it seem to have become to the younger generation of conductors.

Don't throw the baby with the tub water: all 3 are Bruckner's children !!!

[Mahlerian]

A fine precis, thanks.

Step # 2 is to realize that, although very compelling, envelopping - and painstakingly developped - as it is, the 1873 text, sometimes referred to as the "original" version, is also more intractable and difficult to entangle. There is a reason for that: Bruckner had encapsulated and amalgamated into his own compositional idiom various wagnerian quotes and sometimes clumsy bridging material. Eventually he came to the realization that these glued-together "homages to the Master" didn't jive with his own sound world and proceeded to revise the score. The end product was to excise all the Wagner quotes and "reconnect" the bleeding parts.

That's where I disagree with you.  The quotes are a really essential part of the whole thing, and I think the loss of the Valkyrie sleep motif in the first movement, for example, completely changes the balance of moods that the original had.  In an otherwise consistently tense and driving movement, it was the only spot of pure respite.  Note also the reference to it at the end of the slow movement.

Also, I feel that when he made cuts in the Third, the music he used to paper over the gaps was far less inspired than what was there before, and so the whole work feels trivialized.  I don't feel the original is bloated at all, and I rank it as one of his best symphonies (with the Fifth, Eighth, and Ninth), rather than as one of his worst with the revised versions.

I would agree that the orchestration in the revisions is better and has a more varied sound to it, though.

[André]

I don't disagree with you. I love that version too. I'm just stating the reasons behind the action.

[calyptorhynchus]

Re the Third, you also have to think of the complete tonal argument going on. Robert Simpson's analysis of this and other Bruckner symphonies is based on the idea of a current of tonality running through the work, the music arriving at last at a well-prepared home key, having arrived at that key, or relatives, at various key points throughout the work.

Now Simpson had perfect pitch and knew what was going on moment by moment in the work, but he also believed that any listener could tell subconsciously whether the music was on an exciting tonal path or a confused one. In the latter case the music would be disjointed or unintelligible.

I don't have perfect pitch, but what Simpson writes has proved true for me, back in the mid 1970s I first heard the 3rd in one of the later versions and thought it was a fascinating sound world, but just a mass of disjointed fragments that didn't add up to a symphony and were quite hard to listen to all the way through. When I first heard the 1873 version it was as if the fragments had been put in the right order at last and you could listen to them as a symphony.

Simpson isn't a first version fundamentalist, for the 4th he recommends the 1878 version, and for the 8th the Haas version, a revised version with a few passages from the earlier version retained. In other works he fully acknowledges that some parts of later versions are better orchestrated or whatever (cf his recommendation above to have the final part of the 1878 version of the 3rd's adagio, which I have constructed). He always prefers the version that has the clearest tonal argument.

[Mahlerian]

I don't disagree with you. I love that version too. I'm just stating the reasons behind the action.

True enough that Bruckner probably did come to wonder about several aspects of his Third.  The original is actually a relatively difficult work to get to know, and even among Bruckner's works it is a fairly aggressive piece, bold in harmony and unconventional in development.

It's telling that he never did change one of the most unconventional things about the first movement of the work, the fact that the main theme is stated in a fortissimo unison in the home key in the exact center of the development.  He must have known that it would be mistakenly identified in some of the audience's mind as a recapitulation, and they would be confused by the way it proceeded to move away immediately.

With regards to Bruckner's other revisions, I would point to the Fourth as being a fascinating case where instead of merely hacking away material, Bruckner recomposed large swaths of the whole thing (including the entirety of the scherzo).  In that case, the revision is widely considered the more effective piece, but I think both are entirely valid works and worth getting to know.  There were plenty of fascinating touches in the 1874 Fourth that were removed in favor of streamlining the musical argument and making it more straightforward.

[calyptorhynchus]

It's telling that he never did change one of the most unconventional things about the first movement of the work, the fact that the main theme is stated in a fortissimo unison in the home key in the exact center of the development.  He must have known that it would be mistakenly identified in some of the audience's mind as a recapitulation, and they would be confused by the way it proceeded to move away immediately.

This also occurs in both later versions.

[Mahlerian]

This also occurs in both later versions.

Yes, that's exactly what I said, that he never did change that aspect.

[calyptorhynchus]

Sorry, misread your post.

[Mahlerian]

Sorry, misread your post.

No problem.  This has been an interesting discussion.

[bhodges]

For anyone interested in thoughts on Barenboim's complete Bruckner cycle at Carnegie Hall so far, here are my reviews of the first three concerts. The second concert, which fell on the evening of Inauguration Day, was especially poignant, given Barenboim's post-concert remarks.

http://seenandheard-international.com/2017/01/a-revelatory-opening-to-barenboims-bruckner-cycle/

http://seenandheard-international.com/2017/01/after-bruckners-second-symphony-barenboim-gives-a-memorable-coda/

http://newyorkclassicalreview.com/2017/01/in-majestic-bruckner-third-barenboim-defies-conventional-wisdom/

--Bruce

[André]

Great reviews, Bruce ! From his work with so many different orchestras, one wonders what type of sound Barenboim coaxes from this excellent orchestra at this stage in his life.

I'm sure that, as a Bruckner interpreter, he has come a long way from his initial forays into the composer's works. And yet, I remain much more loyal to his Chicago cycle than the Berlin remake. I'm really curious about this new cycle. I look forward to your next reviews !

[Sergeant Rock]

For anyone interested in thoughts on Barenboim's complete Bruckner cycle at Carnegie Hall so far, here are my reviews of the first three concerts. The second concert, which fell on the evening of Inauguration Day, was especially poignant, given Barenboim's post-concert remarks.

http://seenandheard-international.com/2017/01/a-revelatory-opening-to-barenboims-bruckner-cycle/

http://seenandheard-international.com/2017/01/after-bruckners-second-symphony-barenboim-gives-a-memorable-coda/

http://newyorkclassicalreview.com/2017/01/in-majestic-bruckner-third-barenboim-defies-conventional-wisdom/

--Bruce

Next best thing to being there, reading your reviews. Thanks, Bruce. A question: were the concerts well-attended? Did the early symphonies draw in the crowds?

Sarge

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Checking in at Casa Bruckner.

[bhodges]

Great reviews, Bruce ! From his work with so many different orchestras, one wonders what type of sound Barenboim coaxes from this excellent orchestra at this stage in his life.

I'm sure that, as a Bruckner interpreter, he has come a long way from his initial forays into the composer's works. And yet, I remain much more loyal to his Chicago cycle than the Berlin remake. I'm really curious about this new cycle. I look forward to your next reviews !

Next best thing to being there, reading your reviews. Thanks, Bruce. A question: were the concerts well-attended? Did the early symphonies draw in the crowds?

Sarge

Thanks, guys! Re: the sound of the orchestra. Last time I heard them was about 10 years ago when Barenboim and Boulez split conducting honors with a complete Mahler cycle (also at Carnegie). The concerts were excellent, overall, but I don't recall the group sounding as good as it does, this time around. Last night's Fifth, for example, might have been the best of the five concerts so far, with no signs of fatigue.

And the concerts have been very well attended. The first three looked to be sold out (though I couldn't be sure -- just a visual check of the hall).

--Bruce

[Cato]

Many thanks to Bruce Brewski for the reviews of the Carnegie Hall concerts: here is another view.

Allow me to offer a review from the Wall Street Journal of Barenboim's current Bruckner cycle being played this week: (CAUTION!  The reviewer makes a few snide comments about Bruckner's occasionally "weak material"       PLUS: the picture shows him conducting a Mozart piano concerto, but the caption implies he is conducting the Bruckner First Symphony!)     Anyway, in the end, the review is positive!

...Monday's performance of the popular Fourth Symphony, which Bruckner dubbed "Romantic," soared impressively. Mr. Barenboim's full-bodied approach was seamless throughout. The andante, with its subtle funeral-march rhythms, had the right touch of melancholy, with velvety timpani rolls and expansive restatements of brass themes. There was a thrilling progression from the long, solemn sigh—a farewell?—near the end of the andante to the scream of anguish by the brass and strings in the finale, with its somber but ultimately transcendent coda. Other maestros have captured more of the spiritual rebirth that Bruckner, a devout Catholic, may have envisioned here, but Mr. Barenboim and his musicians conveyed its irrepressible joy.


Throughout these concerts, the members of the Staatskapelle demonstrated a high level of involvement and stamina. While the orchestra lacks the pinpoint precision and cushy homogeneity of, say, the Vienna Philharmonic, it has similarly golden-toned flutes, mellow brass and versatile strings, soft or acerbic as the music requires. Mr. Barenboim has been the Staatskapelle's general music director since 1992 and its chief conductor for life since 2000.

About 450 individuals reportedly purchased tickets for five or more concerts of the Bruckner cycle...

See:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/barenboim-does-bruckner-at-carnegie-hall-1485298402