Bruckner's Abbey

[Opus106]

This is probably the same version that Navneeth has, as I believe we obtained it from the same source.  

Indeed.

[greg]

This is probably the same version that Navneeth has, as I believe we obtained it from the same source.   Nevertheless, I'll post the links to my copy if you (or anyone else) wants to check it out. 

Bruckner: Symphony No. 8
Klaus Tennstedt
Boston Symphony Orchestra
December 20, 1974
From off-the-air open reel
FLAC files

http://www.mediafire.com/?zhglzyulgye
http://www.mediafire.com/?lgjq3en0ktw
http://www.mediafire.com/?ztgjimml2wn

Nice! Can't wait to listen. 

[Lethevich]

Ta! I only had it in mp3.

[greg]

This is probably the same version that Navneeth has, as I believe we obtained it from the same source.   Nevertheless, I'll post the links to my copy if you (or anyone else) wants to check it out. 

Bruckner: Symphony No. 8
Klaus Tennstedt
Boston Symphony Orchestra
December 20, 1974
From off-the-air open reel
FLAC files

http://www.mediafire.com/?zhglzyulgye
http://www.mediafire.com/?lgjq3en0ktw
http://www.mediafire.com/?ztgjimml2wn

For anyone who hasn't listened to this yet, just beware. At the very end, almost at the same time the last chord is struck, a guy yells "BRAVO!" extremely loud.
I love the enthusiasm, but... it scared the hell out of me! 

[Lethevich]

For anyone who hasn't listened to this yet, just beware. At the very end, almost at the same time the last chord is struck, a guy yells "BRAVO!" extremely loud.
I love the enthusiasm, but... it scared the hell out of me! 

Ick, a nice Bruckner/CSO 4 from Barenboim was also ruined by that. What's with US audiences and the bravos?

[Keemun]

Ick, a nice Bruckner/CSO 4 from Barenboim was also ruined by that. What's with US audiences and the bravos?

It's a sign of sophistication. 

[Renfield]

Ta! I only had it in mp3.

Ditto! Not to mention my old copy was lost when the laptop it was stored in fried before I'd backed it up.

[Lilas Pastia]

In your PM inbox, that's where.

Oh, thanks !! Will download it right after typing this! 

[greg]

It's a sign of sophistication. 

They might think that. 

[Renfield]

I've still to acquire the Andreae cycle, alas. However, speaking of Tennstedt, I noticed Testament are continuing their archival explorations with a number of Tennstedt's appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic, including - crucially - performances of Bruckner's 4th and 8th!

[Opus106]

I've seen some praise for the recording of the 7th, played by the Dresden Staatskapelle, with Blomstedt conducting, on Denon. And IIRC, it was also said to be OOP. FYI: it has been re-issued by another label, called Del Sagno.

[Renfield]

I've seen some praise for the recording of the 7th, played by the Dresden Staatskapelle, with Blomstedt conducting, on Denon. And IIRC, it was also said to be OOP. FYI: it has been re-issued by another label, called Del Sagno.

I'm pretty sure it's been discussed, if not in this thread, then certainly in other places in this forum more than once.

For what it's worth, I find it a very suave and beguiling account, with nuanced, excellent playing. But it's still not above the sheer beauty of the EMI Karajan, the 'meaningfulness' of the latter DG Karajan, or the humanity of the Walter, IMO. In my book, it's a very solid A.

[DarkAngel]

Anyone plan on getting the just released Rozy Bruckner set on Venezia label recorded in 1980s?
Available at HMV Japan for one...........

[Lethevich]

I doubt that they could possibly have corrected the unlistenable mixing quality of those recordings...

[Lilas Pastia]

An earlier (1970) Rozhdestvensky 9th is available for free download on John Berky's site. Never issued on cd.

[Leo K.]

This is a great thread for a relatively new Bruckner fan!  Great reads on every page here.

For the last three years or so I've been making my way through these works...very very slowly, as I still haven't heard the 00,0,1st, and 3rd Symphonies...but I enjoy this slow process, and I'm getting to know 4-9 very well by means of a variety of recordings on LP and CD.

At present, I have been enjoying Celibidache's Munchner cycle on EMI.  Tonight I heard his Bruckner 4 and was lost in a world of enchantment...totally blown away by the nostalgic reverie I heard in the performance.

Also, the F Minor Mass from this set...very incredible.

I've heard the 9 from this set again and again...what can I say that hasn't been told through better reviews?  Simply great in every way.

Also...have been enjoying this set, and the stunning transfers:



The 1951 VPO #4 is out of this world.

[Renfield]

Also...have been enjoying this set, and the stunning transfers:



The 1951 VPO #4 is out of this world.

This is indeed a diamond of a box set; although that having been said, I have some reservations over the remastering for the 8th, which I find a little brighter (if harsher) in its DG incarnation...

[Lilas Pastia]

Continuing my journey through various versions of the 8th. I'm not sure I had mentioned my gameplan for this series? Timing (tempi) is the key: I've started with the fastest ones and am proceeding through some 30 versions, which will end with a Munich Celi performance of some 100 minutes's duration (the Audior one, not the EMI). I'm interested to feel what is gained, what is lost, and how the character of the work changes as the conductor adopts broader tempi and (I think it's a corollary) 'looser' orchestral textures.

Last in the sequence were the Klemperer Cologne, Mrawinsky (from the Melodya Mrawinsky edition), von Matacic NHK. I then inadvertently jumped the queue by playing an Osaka Asahina recording (it should have come later as it's much broader).

The Klemperer Cologne (live, 06.1957, Nowak) is a great performance, marred only by ho-hum sound (serviceable is the operative word). As ususal with Klemperer, there are no 'niceties' in this performance. It's tough, urgent, gritty and somewhat unpredictable. Tempi in the first two movements are on the moderate side of things (14:12 and 14:25). This is the stoic, unsentimental kapellmeister at work. In the last two movements the performance acquires a sense of urgency. Timings are on the fast side (22:32 and 20:44). Klemperer often took fast movements slowly, and slow ones flowingly. In any case, it's a convincing approach. This is unsentimental, unsensational, unvarnished Bruckner conducting. I never have the feeling the conductor is trying to impose his view on the work or the composer. The cumulative force of the reading is very impressive, and there are many thrilling moments.

Mrawinsky's 1959 Leningrad version uses the slightly fuller Haas version. This adds a few seconds to the Adagio, and something like 1:30 in the Finale. Mrawinsky's is a monumental conception, even though timings are on the fast side in II, III and IV. This is not my preferred interpretation of the symphony, but it has many impressive qualities. Mrawinsky's Bruckner may come across as glacial and forbidding. It's a formidable interpretation, carried with total commitment and concentration by all involved. The sound belies its age, but may be partly to blame for the rather stern result. It's closely miked, and although it's a live recording, there's little sense of a concert hall ambience. Soft dynamics are sacrificed for immediacy of sound. Not for everyday consumption, then, but mightily impressive when in the right mood.

Von Matacic's Tokyo performance with the NHK Symphony is a totally different affair (Nowak edition, recorded 1984). This conductor is an old hand at opera, and I think it shows here. Last time I heard it, some details had struck me as willful and mannered (the timpani parts especially). What I heard this week sounded much better than I had remembered it. It's a totally engaged interpretation, with the conductor giving it his all in what must have been for him a labour of love. The NHK Orchestra as recorded live in March 1984 sounds a little like Munich's BRSO. It's light in the bass, with refined strings and clear, easily differentiated winds and brass. No mitteleuropa burr to the sound. Everything sounds clear as a bell. Denon's engineering is superlative in its combination of effortless clarity and depth of soundstage. The harp part (scherzo and Adagio) has never sounded so pure and crystalline. Matacic's is a totally human reading, it alternately exults and explodes, it cajoles and lingers, it holds back and charges ahead thrillingly. Lest that sound like a recipe for Scriabine instead of Bruckner, I should add that the conductor is clearly the master of the score. It's just that he brings to it a mix of ebullience and sentiment that are normally not associated with Bruckner conducting. I commend listening to the Adagio of this interpretation as worth any masterclass in conducting. This easily sails to the top 4-5 among the 'dramatic' views of this symphony (other worthies include Böhm Cologne and Munich, Païta, Tennstedt).

Putting on the Asahina Osaka Philharmonic after the Matacic was a special experience.  There are similarities in sound production between the two japanese orchestras, but that's about it. Everything else is totally different. The orchestra has a great string section, and the conductor clearly lays out the proceedings with exacting differentiation of the various strands of string parts. Time and again my ears perked up as I was hearing things I had never noticed before - details, or balances that came across as quite different from the usual Bruckner sound. Winds, too, sounded very pure, detaching easily from the ambient texture. Remarkable considering that this, too, is a live recording (07.1994). But the conductor seems to have a very special POV about brass balances. These are very mellow, sounding sometimes like a giant organ. Not that they play loud, but they sometimes sound blended to a fault. It's hard to figure that 8 horns are coughing their lungs out in the coda. Maybe this is just the way these particular players sound. The effect is somewhat disconcerting. Interpretively Asahina has a strong POV to put across. I was mightily impressed by the formidable intricacy of the string layers in the first movement. At a moderate, but not sluggish pace (15:30), the conductor shapes the phrases impressively, building them to moments of jaw dropping beauty (the great stasis some 6 minutes in) or immense power (the main climax). Impressive also is his willingness to stretch things out to great effect. The whole coda is mesmerizing, as is his melodramatic, twisted way with the last dying gasp of the strings.

I was more critical of the scherzo, where the main tempo is too sedate for my taste. But this serves as a framework for some quite extraordinary distensions of tempo in the slower parts - not just the trio, but the connecting interludes of the scherzo parts as well. This is something I had never heard this way before. A 'standard' tempo for the fast sections would probably have made those slower parts sound awfully wilful. In this context, it works. Asahina is not against hamming it up either: the loud thwacks that bookend both sections of the scherzo would wake up the dead!

At 29  minutes, the adagio is definitely on the slow side, but it is intensely felt throughout, and concentration never flags. My favourite part is about 18 minutes in, when the tempo slows and the textures thin out into nothingness. This is followed by another section where the tempo picks up and the atmosphere suddenly becomes tense and anguished. I like to hear these two sections bridged by a few seconds of silence (think of the first movement of the 9th symphony, with its suspenseful pauses). Here it was beautifully done, but alas, no bridge. One section immediately follows the other. Still, a great movement.

I have reservations about the finale, which in the whole drags a bit - or maybe the orchestra was showing signs of fatigue at that point (some brass confusion in the coda) - or lack of clarity. Conductor's balances or the vagaries of the concert, it's hard to tell. All told it was impressive, but doubts crept in here and there. A formidable concluding arpeggiated chord, strongly italicized. For some unfathomable reason, Canyon has seen fit to preserve 13 minutes of applause on a concluding track. Timings are 15:30, 16:30, 29:00 and 23:40. Uneven results, but a fascinating interpretation. This was my first exposure to the art of Asahina. He seems to have played and recorded more Bruckner than anyone else (dead or alive).

[Drasko]

Now you're talking business my friend! Three of those are amongst my all time favorites, and I more or less completely agree with how you characterized them. Just to add few details.
I always find that Klemperer/Koln performance having such tremendous purpose. He has his vision clear as as mountain top, and he is getting there as in a cavalry charge, straight line and no prisoners. Particularly terrific moment is Scherzo proper driven ferociously by timpani (the only way it should go in my opinion).
Performance under Mravinsky, almost as usual, has feel of this overwhelming, and yes forbidding, power waiting to erupt, but being kept in check under iron control of the puppet-master. Recording is studio, I believe, not live.
I agree with all you said about Matacic, he had a feel for possibly most naturally perfect pacing of all Bruckner conductors I heard. NHK Orchestra gets bit tonally weak at moments. Recording quality is exceptional.
I have that '94 Osaka Asahina recording, but can recall very little about it.     

[Lilas Pastia]

You're right, Milos. The Mrawinsky seems to be a studio production. The hand of steel in an iron glove feeling may sound off-putting at first, but after a few hearings I got used to the absolute control emanating from the podium. Within these aesthetic strictures, it's a formidable interpretation.

I just read a very thorough and illuminating french review of the Klemperer Cologne recording. Here's an extract, in which I highlight those words that have the same root and meaning in French or English. It just so happens that they perfectly illustrate the whole review:

Sans surprise, le geste de Klemperer est austère et toujours terriblement impérieux. Le sentiment d'urgence et surtout d'effroi [frightfulness] est toujours présent, et naît d'abord de la constance de la tension aux cordes. C'est simple, il y de l'électricité dans l'air, d'un bout à l'autre. Les rares instants de poésies  ne frappent que davantage l'oreille.

I have come to discern a particular quality to this work that I can best describe as 'suspenseful'. There are moments of tension, moments where the music seems to be threading on a wire over an abyss that I now look for whenever I listen to this masterpiece. Specifically, I can point to five such instances. I could also compare them to the feeling of crossing a rope bridge over a gorge. The music becomes calmer in tempo, the textures rarefy to the point where the orchestra becomes almost inaudible.

I - at the end of the development section in the first movement, about 6 minutes in.

II - at the end of the first movement, where the music peters out into nothingness, with a falling three note motif that is repeated four times, ever softer, as if the music was liquefying.

III about 16-18 minutes in the Adagio, a long passage where I always have the impression of hearing The Todesverkündigung music from Walküre, where Brünnhilde announces his imminent death to Siegmund. The sense of yearning and ache is overwhelming when this passage is well handled. That's the place where I like to hear a pause before lauching into the anguished,
agitated section that follows.

IV - as in I, the quiet, resigned, desolate coda to the Adagio.

V - In the finale, the suspenseful winding down before the coda. This always reminds me of falling leaves - litterally: the passage is made of a succession of falling figurations in the strings before it peters out and 'lands' on a cushion of low strings that intone a short, resigned  threnody. Then follows the extraordinary moment with the death knell sounded from afar on the timpani. Note how the coda starts on the violins mysteriously taking up the preceding passage's downward figurations, this time in reverse motion: the ascent to light has begun.

Last note: I wish some-one with a score could confirm if I hear the same three note downward interval in the last moments of I (the 'liquefied' bit) and IV, where it is hurled out by the full might of the orchestra crashing down ffff to conclude the work.


Last heard: a Furtwängler version from  17.10.1944. The Vienna Philharmonic plays, presumably in the Musikverein or the Konzerthaus. This is from a DG box. Unfortunately, the sound here is so unpleasant as to ruin the considerable musical experience. Pitch is unsteady, there is flutter, and a generally glassy feeling that is aurally painful to endure. What is not to be denied is the powerful emotional experience it must have been to be at that concert. There is a sense of enervation, of impending catastrophe that are palpable. Alternately febrile and monumental, Furtwängler's conducting imparts a distraught feeling that verges on the unstable at times. The scherzo in particular has a jarring alternance of manic activity (the 'iroun foundry' cackling trumpets of the scherzo proper) and distended, 'Rêveries, passions' episodes that reluctantly give way to yet another round of motoristic sherzoing. This is almost schizophrenic Bruckner conducting. I wonder if the Viennese had the kind of feeling concertgoers must have had in 1945 when Gieseking was playing the Emperor concerto under the accompaniment of distant bombing and anti-aircraft thudding. If only it was in better sound.