Bruckner's Abbey

Started by Lilas Pastia, April 06, 2007, 07:15:30 AM

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Linz

#3860
Haitink really slows down the tempo of the fifth's finally in this recording

calyptorhynchus

Quote from: Linz on March 02, 2023, 10:07:18 AMHaitink really slows down the tempo of the fifth's finally in this recording

But that's the whole finale (he said, suspecting auto-correct), not just the final few bars?
'Many men are melancholy by hearing music, but it is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth.' Robert Burton

LKB

For the most part, people exaggerate when they refer to this broadening of the tempo. It isn't " half- tempo ", more like 75%.

Haitink does it on his recording with the VPO and the one referenced above. Von Karajan didn't, and I've personally preferred that approach.
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen...

Cato



I have mentioned that I came across Bruckner and Mahler by Professor H.F. Redlich, a comparative biography and comparative analysis of their works (up to a point) written about 70 years ago.

I am sure that he was not the first one to notice the parallel between the main theme of the Adagio of Bruckner's Symphony #9 and the main theme (NOT the opening "motto" in the  Violas) for the First Movement in Mahler's Symphony #10.

Bruckner:



Mahler: bar 16 ff. Adagio




Certainly they are different enough that they cannot be confused.

Whether Mahler consciously or unconsciously used Bruckner's Ninth Symphony as a model...who knows?

Professor Redlich writes:
Quote"...this deeply moving, abjectly melancholy, hopelessly nostalgic movement, with its beauty almost visibly turning to ashes, could not have come into being without the coda of (the last movement of) Das Lied von der Erde, without the two outer movements of Symphony IX and indeed with the Adagio of Bruckner's own incomplete Symphony IX, which acted as a kind of model for the wide skips and the fiery trombone-background of the movement's main subject...

(See examples above)

The movement starts with a long...solo for the Viola...which in turn becomes the 'lighter' contrast group, recalling the manner in which Bruckner alternates between his 3-4 contrast subject and the main chorale subject in the Adagio of his Symphony VII.

The latter (i.e. Bruckner's Symphony VII) might also be regarded as one of Mahler's (un)conscious models for the Adagio of the Symphony X..."


The above comes from p.p. 230-231.
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

LKB

Got home about thirty minutes ago from the Vienna Philharmonic performing the Eighth, Thielmann conducting.

The orchestra was in very good form, richly balanced and blended. l was particularly impressed with the violins, basses, horns and woodwinds.

A very impressive and persuasive reading, though Thielmann still needlessly pushes the tempo in a few places.

Tonight's encore was Josef Strauss's Sphärenklänge, and it was perfect.
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen...

Cato

Quote from: LKB on March 09, 2023, 10:50:16 PMGot home about thirty minutes ago from the Vienna Philharmonic performing the Eighth, Thielmann conducting.

The orchestra was in very good form, richly balanced and blended. l was particularly impressed with the violins, basses, horns and woodwinds.

A very impressive and persuasive reading, though Thielmann still needlessly pushes the tempo in a few places.

Tonight's encore was Josef Strauss's Sphärenklänge, and it was perfect.


Excellent opportunity to hear them at Carnegie Hall! 
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Cato

A FaceBook Bruckner fan recommends this as the best Te Deum performance ever!


"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

LKB

Quote from: Cato on March 10, 2023, 02:13:18 PMExcellent opportunity to hear them at Carnegie Hall! 

I wish l had, Thursday night's concert was in Berkeley, CA.  ::)
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen...

Cato

Quote from: LKB on March 14, 2023, 01:14:54 PMI wish l had, Thursday night's concert was in Berkeley, CA.  ::)

Oh!  I checked the travel schedule and thought you must have been in NYC!   :D
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Cato

It has been too long since I took some time to check The Bruckner Journal, the successor to Chord and Discord, which was being edited by Jack Diether when I started reading it in the 1960's.

I came across this article in the archives of The Bruckner Journal: a Unitarian minister (from Scotland or Australia?) speaking on Bruckner's mysticism.

Quote
This is the (slightly edited) text of an address given at Blackpool Unitarian Church on 5th October 2014 by Dr Martin Pulbrook, Lay Minister of that church. During the Service recordings were played of Aequale No. 1 for 3 trombones, (Hamburg, 2000), Locus iste (NDR Choir, Hamburg, 2000), and the first 5¼ minutes of the Adagio of Furtwängler's 1944 performance of the Ninth Symphony.


                            The Mystical Genius of Anton Bruckner

IMAGINE you faced the question: "Who, in your view, are the most important people who ever lived?" For me,
inevitably, the choice, for one of the available positions, would be made in favour of Anton Bruckner. He was a rare spiritual master, not only a musical composer but also a Christian mystic of the very highest order. Briefly, let me try to explain the reasons for the choice.

Bruckner was a most traditional child of the Catholic Church. Born and brought up in the Catholic heartland of Upper Austria, Bruckner's spiritual life centred on the majestic Abbey of St Florian. He was a boy-chorister there, and in death his embalmed remains lie in a sarcophagus beneath the Abbey's mighty organ.

But Bruckner also knew the heartbreak of rebellion from the tradition that fostered him. In essence Catholic orthodoxy was neither large enough nor open enough to accommodate the extent of Bruckner's vision. In trying to 'clip his wings', Catholic officialdom, much to its own ultimate loss and discredit, succeeded in the end merely in driving Bruckner deeper into himself.

Bruckner's journey of quest led in time to his greatest spiritual masterpiece, the Ninth Symphony, dedicated, with deepest humility, "to dear God, if He will accept it". It was a long and sometimes painful journey, and there is as yet no adequate acknowledgement, either from musicians or the Christian Church, of the enormity of Bruckner's achievement

in the Ninth Symphony. For it is certainly part of my thesis here, and a significant reason for my placing of Bruckner among the 'most important people who ever lived', that his Ninth Symphony, by some long distance, is the most profound musical work ever composed.

Bruckner from his earliest years was captivated by vocal polyphony and Gregorian Chant, "the ever-flowing song" - as one critic aptly described it - "of the Catholic Church at prayer". But no less, from his earliest exposure to it, was Bruckner entranced by Wagner's use of the orchestra. And the ideal, in his fecund imagination, would be to combine the two.

The Catholic Church, in its traditional wisdom (as expressed by the Cäcilienverein - the Society of Cecilia), refused to sanction the combination. Bruckner, ever the dutiful son, tried to exercise the ordained restraint, in his austerely beautiful Mass in E minor (for wind instruments only and eight-part choir) of 1866.
But the shackles of this restraint were not, for Bruckner, a long-term possibility. The consequent tension caused a nervous breakdown, and henceforward Bruckner committed himself, with few exceptions, to the purely orchestral symphony. The symphony thus became, for Bruckner, the type of a "wordless Mass for Orchestra", in which his deepest spiritual promptings could be explored outside and beyond the limitations which marked the policy of the Cäcilienverein.

In Bruckner's symphonies we are far from the organized onward development and movement of sonata form. Rather,
we start from the blank canvas of silence, progressing gradually and tentatively into the exploration of eternity. There are many false starts, many pauses for wonderment and taking stock along the way. But, as confidence grows, there are heart-rendingly beautiful and intimate moments of melody, and perorations, majestic and even awe-inspiring in their grandeur.

The key to success in performance, and the key to understanding what Bruckner is trying to do, lies in patience. The patience demanded is akin to that required in a spiritual retreat, and it is this patience in the quest of the infinite and eternal, and consequently the affirmation resulting from the protracted search, that cement Bruckner's claim to be a Christian mystic.

And in the Ninth Symphony all these trends and strivings reach their furthest level of expression. The work was
essentially complete at Bruckner's death in 1896, the first three movements entrusted for safe-keeping to Dr Karl Muck, the fourth movement on the composer's desk. But to their eternal shame, those responsible failed to secure Bruckner's apartment, and booty-hunters pillaged some pages of the last movement's manuscript.

We owe to the painstaking reconstructive work (based on Bruckner's sketches) of the Australian musicologist John
Phillips [in collaboration with Nicola Samale, Giuseppe Mazzuca and Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs] that Bruckner's final and greatest achievement can at last (since 1996) be seen and heard complete, in its intended four movements. (The three-movement form of the work known and performed for so many years represents an inevitable curtailment and blunting of Bruckner's full imaginative vision.)

Bruckner's world is a timeless world, an eternal world, an essentially true world, for those who are willing to take the time to accompany him there. And with infinite perceptiveness the Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache on one occasion observed that "Bruckner is God's greatest gift to humankind". Would that this acknowledgement were universal, for it assuredly deserves to be!

Dr Martin Pulbrook St Andrews/Dundee/Perth, 23rd/25th January 2014

[Bruckner's relationship as a composer with the Catholic Church, the Cäcilienverein, and the cause of his 'nervous breakdown' as described by Dr Pulbrook differs from most scholarly commentary today. But that Anton Bruckner was the subject of an address in Blackpool Unitarian Church seems a singular event that earns that address publication in The Bruckner Journal. Ed.]

My emphasis above.

See:

https://brucknerjournal.com/Issues/ewExternalFiles/19iA4.pdf


And...


https://brucknerjournal.com/Issues/backissues4.html
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Karl Henning

Quote from: Cato on March 20, 2023, 01:16:50 PMIt has been too long since I took some time to check The Bruckner Journal, the successor to Chord and Discord, which was being edited by Jack Diether when I started reading it in the 1960's.

I came across this article in the archives of The Bruckner Journal: a Unitarian minister (from Scotland or Australia?) speaking on Bruckner's mysticism.

My emphasis above.

See:

https://brucknerjournal.com/Issues/ewExternalFiles/19iA4.pdf


And...


https://brucknerjournal.com/Issues/backissues4.html
Quoth Mr Spock: Fascinating.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Cato

Quote from: Karl Henning on March 20, 2023, 01:32:30 PMQuoth Mr Spock: Fascinating.


;)    8)

What caught my eye especially was that this essay was from a Unitarian minister, which church was once puckishly described by one of my professors as "a religion just in case there is a God."  8)

And where is my Angel emoticon?!  Here is another instance where it would be perfect!

Maybe I should start doing this:




Anyway, yes, I thought the essay was also "Fascinating" and not only for this belief:

" For it is certainly part of my thesis here, and a significant reason for my placing of Bruckner among the 'most important people who ever lived', that his Ninth Symphony, by some long distance, is the most profound musical work ever composed. "
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Karl Henning

Quote from: Cato on March 20, 2023, 02:08:24 PM;)    8)

What caught my eye especially was that this essay was from a Unitarian minister, which church was once puckishly described by one of my professors as "a religion just in case there is a God."  8)

And where is my Angel emoticon?!  Here is another instance where it would be perfect!

Maybe I should start doing this:




Anyway, yes, I thought the essay was also "Fascinating" and not only for this belief:

" For it is certainly part of my thesis here, and a significant reason for my placing of Bruckner among the 'most important people who ever lived', that his Ninth Symphony, by some long distance, is the most profound musical work ever composed. "

Here's certainly a case where, while empirically I am apt to question the pursuit of a "most profound musical work ever composed," I thoroughly enjoy the thesis, and appreciate the eloquence whereby the enthusiasm is expressed. There's a great deal of interest in there!
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

vers la flamme

#3873
Quote from: Karl Henning on March 20, 2023, 02:12:40 PMHere's certainly a case where, while empirically I am apt to question the pursuit of a "most profound musical work ever composed," I thoroughly enjoy the thesis, and appreciate the eloquence whereby the enthusiasm is expressed. There's a great deal of interest in there!

Fully agreed, and if anyone else wants to write at length to tell me why Bruckner's 9th (or any other piece of music, for that matter) is the peak of all human artistic expression, I'm all ears, though I may not agree. I'm a sucker for people writing with such intensity about their convictions. I'm of two minds as to whether or not this kind of hagiographic writing on Bruckner does any real service to his music or legacy, but I do admire the intense and clearly deeply felt enthusiasm.

Thanks for sharing Cato, though I expect this may rub some of us the wrong way (including some resident GMG Brucknerians).

By the way, I listened to Celibidache's Bruckner 4th again the other day. That bit about Bruckner being "God's greatest gift to humankind", you can tell Celi really believes that.

Cato

#3874
Quote from: vers la flamme on March 20, 2023, 04:15:02 PMFully agreed, and if anyone else wants to write at length to tell me why Bruckner's 9th (or any other piece of music, for that matter) is the peak of all human artistic expression, I'm all ears, though I may not agree. I'm a sucker for people writing with such intensity about their convictions. I'm of two minds as to whether or not this kind of hagiographic writing on Bruckner does any real service to his music or legacy, but I do admire the intense and clearly deeply felt enthusiasm.

Thanks for sharing Cato, though I expect this may rub some of us the wrong way (including some resident GMG Brucknerians).

By the way, I listened to Celibidache's Bruckner 4th again the other day. That bit about Bruckner being "God's greatest gift to humankind", you can tell Celi really believes that.


Yes, the author apparently listened to the completed version of Bruckner's Ninth (Simon Rattle's recording?) and had a quasi-Road-to-Damascus moment via the work!

I must listen to that Bruckner 4th/ Celibidache recording sooner rather than later! 
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Brahmsian

Well, the Bruckner 9th is my favourite symphony of any composer, but I don't know if it's the most profound music ever written?  :D

However, it is pretty damn good.

Keemun

Quote from: OrchestralNut on March 20, 2023, 05:00:39 PMWell, the Bruckner 9th is my favourite symphony of any composer, but I don't know if it's the most profound music ever written?  :D

However, it is pretty damn good.

Have you heard the recording by Abbado/Lucerne Festival Orchestra?  It's excellent.  My favorite version (as of now).

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. - Ludwig van Beethoven

Brahmsian

Quote from: Keemun on March 21, 2023, 06:27:54 PMHave you heard the recording by Abbado/Lucerne Festival Orchestra?  It's excellent.  My favorite version (as of now).



I have not heard that one Todd.  :) My old favourite seems to remain Jochum/Dresden.

DavidW

Quote from: OrchestralNut on March 22, 2023, 02:39:46 AMI have not heard that one Todd.  :) My old favourite seems to remain Jochum/Dresden.

And my favorite is

Cato

Quote from: DavidW on March 22, 2023, 07:15:11 AMAnd my favorite is


Are those stereo recordings?

Besides this stereo recording conducted by Eugen Jochum...




...I was also enthralled in the 1960's by Carl Schuricht's "no-nonsense" approach:

"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)