Bruckner's Abbey

[TheGSMoeller]

A massive performance. Broad phrasing with a bold LPO sound, a truly majestic 6th with an exquisite 20-minute Adagio. 
Live recording, great sound with great range, very few coughs.

[MishaK]

A massive performance. Broad phrasing with a bold LPO sound, a truly majestic 6th with an exquisite 20-minute Adagio. 
Live recording, great sound with great range, very few coughs.

I listened to this a while back on Spotify and it didn't really do it for me. May have to revisit. I heard Eschenbach do a marvellous 8th with NYPO several years back. He's supposed to do 9 with CSO here next season. BTW, if you have access to the BPO digital concert hall, there is a terrific 6 with Chailly in the archive.

[TheGSMoeller]

I listened to this a while back on Spotify and it didn't really do it for me. May have to revisit. I heard Eschenbach do a marvellous 8th with NYPO several years back. He's supposed to do 9 with CSO here next season. BTW, if you have access to the BPO digital concert hall, there is a terrific 6 with Chailly in the archive.

Thanks for the info, Mishak. I know you're in Chicago and I posted the new Grant Park Orchestra schedule for this upcoming season, they are performing Bruckner's 2nd in August.

This is the first Eschenbach/Bruckner performance I've heard. It reminded me of his Brahms, which to me is very patient and broad. 

[TheGSMoeller]

Anton Bruckner: Jam Lucis Orto Sidere Dignare


 

Have become obsessively fascinated with Bruckner's motet Jam Lucis Orto Sidere Dignare. Have found three highly successful but quite differently performed recordings. The first is from The Choir of St. Bride's Church, utilizing a mixed choir of both male and female voices, and an organ. Choir of St. Mary's Cathedral sounds to be performed only by a smaller male choir.  And finally the Choeurs d'enfants de Saint Christophe de Javel , a children's choir and solo tenor (an adult/mature voice) accompanied by organ. I only own the complete Naxos album of motets, and purchased the solo track on iTunes of the other two.

[Cato]

Anton Bruckner: Jam Lucis Orto Sidere Dignare

Have become obsessively fascinated with Bruckner's motet Jam Lucis Orto Sidere Dignare.

Can you give us a hint as to why this little 3-minute work has obsessed you?

[Karl Henning]

This is reminding me that I need to revisit the Masses . . . .

[TheGSMoeller]

Can you give us a hint as to why this little 3-minute work has obsessed you?

Robert Jones (Naxos) stretches it to almost 6 minutes 

The main theme, or melody to Iam Lucis Orto, which opens the work and is repeated throughout, has a rising quality that is very ethereal. Each section of the melody reaches higher and higher in both pitch and dynamic. I may be a bit off on this, but I've had Iam lucis orto sidere translated to Now light arisen, and have seen other translations referring to a dawning light. I feel this music reflects that initial image perfectly. Having the theme repeated but in different combinations in the choir, or with a soloist, or even with an added accompaniment of organ continues to increase the effectiveness of this repeated theme. I'll admit I'm not very educated in sacred music, or their texts, but this Motet was a piece that initially struck me as special and lead me to research the text a bit further to understand Bruckner's inspiration.

[Brahmsian]

This is reminding me that I need to revisit the Masses . . . .

*pounds the table!*

[asin]B001BBSE32[/asin]

Below the green lemon.  Second for me, only to Mozart's Great Mass in C minor.

[Karl Henning]

Robert Jones (Naxos) stretches it to almost 6 minutes 

The main theme, or melody to Iam Lucis Orto, which opens the work and is repeated throughout, has a rising quality that is very ethereal. Each section of the melody reaches higher and higher in both pitch and dynamic. I may be a bit off on this, but I've had Iam lucis orto sidere translated to Now light arisen, and have seen other translations referring to a dawning light. I feel this music reflects that initial image perfectly. Having the theme repeated but in different combinations in the choir, or with a soloist, or even with an added accompaniment of organ continues to increase the effectiveness of this repeated theme. I'll admit I'm not very educated in sacred music, or their texts, but this Motet was a piece that initially struck me as special and lead me to research the text a bit further to understand Bruckner's inspiration.

Thanks . . . that is not one of the five motets I've got . . . of course, I should have guessed that there are more.

[Cato]

Although biased by the Nowak editions, I do like this recording of the "1872 Version"  (via William Carragan)very much, despite some occasional intonation problems in the orchestra (e.g. flute, horn):

[asin]B0000060D5[/asin]

A reviewer on Amazon trashes it with a one-star review, but I find that very wrong-headed.

[TheGSMoeller]

Although biased by the Nowak editions, I do like this recording of the "1872 Version"  (via William Carragan)very much, despite some occasional intonation problems in the orchestra (e.g. flute, horn):

[asin]B0000060D5[/asin]

A reviewer on Amazon trashes it with a one-star review, but I find that very wrong-headed.

Yes, I just ordered that myself after an enjoyable listen on Spotify. And if its the 1 star review that says this group lacks the sonority of a Brucknarian emsemble, that's wrong. It's a very good sounding performance.

[MishaK]

If you want the Carragan ed. first version of the 2nd, take this:

[asin]B0083FRA4S[/asin]

It's live and it's vastly superior in execution and conception than Tintner (or Young for that matter), plus you get some fine performances of the first version of 1 and the second version of 3 as well.

[mahler10th]

Although biased by the Nowak editions, I do like this recording of the "1872 Version"  (via William Carragan)very much, despite some occasional intonation problems in the orchestra (e.g. flute, horn):

[asin]B0000060D5[/asin]

A reviewer on Amazon trashes it with a one-star review, but I find that very wrong-headed.

Yes, I just ordered that myself after an enjoyable listen on Spotify. And if its the 1 star review that says this group lacks the sonority of a Brucknarian emsemble, that's wrong. It's a very good sounding performance.

That so called review sure IS wrong.  Amazing some of the silly things that are said.  If it lacks the sonority of a 'Brucknerian ensemble' then that would be more the conductors fault than anything else, as it's his job to get them to sound that way.  However, Tintner was a brilliant Brucknerian, and even if he took an amateur orchestra he would have it sounding like Bruckner in no time.  Some reviewers just say things they've heard uttered from their assembled 'references', the philistines.      That kind of review makes me hopping mad too, as it's complete nonsense.   

Thread Duty:  NOW...

[TheGSMoeller]

If you want the Carragan ed. first version of the 2nd, take this:

[asin]B0083FRA4S[/asin]

It's live and it's vastly superior in execution and conception than Tintner (or Young for that matter), plus you get some fine performances of the first version of 1 and the second version of 3 as well.

Must...not...buy...more...Bruckner...

[MishaK]

That so called review sure IS wrong.  Amazing some of the silly things that are said.  If it lacks the sonority of a 'Brucknerian ensemble' then that would be more the conductors fault than anything else, as it's his job to get them to sound that way.  However, Tintner was a brilliant Brucknerian, and even if he took an amateur orchestra he would have it sounding like Bruckner in no time.  Some reviewers just say things they've heard uttered from their assembled 'references', the philistines.      That kind of review makes me hopping mad too, as it's complete nonsense.   

I'm sorry that review bothers you. Sadly, it's spot on. Tintner was only considered a "brilliant Brucknerian" solely by those who fell for the hype at the initial issuance of this overrated Bruckner cycle, which made a splash at the time due to its budget price and coverage of underrecorded first editions. He was outside of the competition for that reason. But now that there is direct competition, that set has not aged well at all for a number of reasons. First and foremost there is the conductor. There is a reason his career always remained in the backwoods. It's not that third rate provincial orchestras with no "Bruckner tradition" can't play Bruckner idiomatically. They can, but it requires a great orchestra builder who knows what he must do on a technical level in order to get a certain sound from an orchestra not used to producing it. And Tintner simply is not a good orchestra builder, and you hear that with all the different ensembles on this cycle: attacks are fuzzy, intonation sometimes sketchy, balances off, dynamic differentiation barely enforced somewhere between mp and ff never mind the more detaild markings in the score, rhythms imprecise. And all this is despite the fact that the recordings seem to have been studio recordings with multiple takes. You can hear the pedantic phrasing and blocky nature of the structure as if the ensemble had been asked to start and stop at every rehearsal number in the score. I could go on. There is simply no excuse for this. But the easiest thing to do is to simply compare how lousy the RSNO sounds with Tintner when put against the same band on the same label with Denève. Different repertpore, I know, so not an exact apples-to-apples comparison, but it doesn't even sound like the same orchestra. The playing is on another level entirely. And I have seen and heard Denève live turn around a provincial orchestra in no time and get them to sound better than they do with other conductors, so, yes, that is a question of skill which Tintner apparently lacked. I didn't buy the hype about the Tintner set when it came out, and I buy it even less so now that there are so many superior alternatives for the early versions available. He simply isn't a good conductor and the Bruckner discography is too vast and rich to waste time on him. 

[kishnevi]

I'm not so down on Tintner as MishaK, but his recording of the first three symphonies were my introduction to Bruckner, and they made a very boring introduction indeed.  Fortunately I pressed on.  It's true that until I hit Karajan no one deeply impressed me with those first three symphonies,  but at least they  weren't as boring and pedantic sounding as Tintner.

I do have two Bruckner recordings that are more boring than Tintner's--Colin Davis 6 and 9/LSO Live. So it is possible to do worse with big name conductors.

[Leo K.]

I have a real fondness for Tintner's account of the 2nd. It was my intro to that work.

[Sergeant Rock]

If I've counted correctly, it's four votes for Tintner's Second and two against. Put me with the majority. So it's five to two now 

Sarge

[Leo K.]

If I've counted correctly, it's four votes for Tintner's Second and two against. Put me with the majority. So it's five to two now 

Sarge

Excellant!!!  It feels good to be in the majority this one time!

[Leo K.]

Maestro Tintner made those orchestras play out of their skins, the 1887 8th with the orchestra from Ireland especially. The Bruckner collector need have no fear that, by buying "budget" they are getting anything less than a first-class, thoroughly idiomatic account. Tintner is not afraid to linger a little over the more lyrical portions of a score and, despite all the nay-sayers, there are plenty of these. He also refuses to let the brass dominate at the cost of all other detail, something a few other conductors might learn from, in Bruckner and elsewhere. Connoisseurs may have known of Tintner's way with Bruckner for some years, in my humble opinion Tintner is a great Bruckner conductor in the grand manner. Less willful than Furtwängler or (Eugen) Jochum, he brings more of the classic grandeur we normally associate with Horenstein. But, different strokes and all that, I understand criticism is very subjective. It has to be.