Bruckner: Symphony no. 9 (Radio 3 in Concert - 3.06.18)

[ahinton]

The Te Deum can't sensibly be considered as a conclusion for the reasons Jayne gives. Like Jayne and BBM, my preference is for the 3 movements on their own, for the same reason why ahinton prefers 4 movements - custom, convention. Like ahinton, I can't make any technical case for my preference (nice to agree with AH from time to time!)

But I must say that I enjoyed the 9th followed by Lontano and Jayne's idea about Lux Aeterna is for me, too fascinating to resist!

Experimenting, or even tinkering is a very positive human trait. Throughout history we've done well out of people who have been curious.

If only Bruckner hadn't allowed himself to be persuaded to spend valuable time towards the end of his life in revising earlier works, he would likely have completed his Ninth Symphony himself; whetever opinions might be about how best to perform and listen to it in the light of the fact that he didn't complete it, there can surely be no doubt about the fact that he intended to do so as a four movement work just as he had always done with his symphonies and that the question of how best to present or listen to it had exercised him during his fear that he might not complete it.

The close of the third movement, as with that of his preceding symphony, is characterised by a sublime but hard-won serenity, but neither represents the close of a symphonic journey.

I don't seek to make a technical case for my preference but the effective dashing of Bruckner's hopes for its performance when given as a three movement work is something with which I have never been able to become reconciled.

Comparing this case with that of Elgar's Third Symphony is of course fraught with flaws for a number of reasons, not least the fact that Elgar only wrote a page and a half of it in full score and left the rest as a thing of shreds and patches (albeit many pages of these); however, not only did he intend it to be a four movement work like Bruckner's Ninth Symphony, he did make a remark about someone perhaps coming along in 50 or 500 years' time to complete it or write a better one (by the latter of which I presume him to have meant writing the symphony that he'd wantged to write only doing it better than he could have done it had he been spared to do so).

One issue with the Bruckner is that, for years, few attempts at a finale were made (just as no one at all tried seriously to do anything with Elgar 3 until Tony Payne took it on) but, unlike the Elgar, more and more material was found and so the possibility of making some kind of finale increased.

[jayne lee wilson]

How wonderfully expressed, Jayne!

The only thing that I'd take issue with (as doubtless you'd expect me to!) is
"But if you listen to and experience the work as a 3-movement piece, surely it has to be sufficient unto itself: the adagio's coda can indeed feel like resolution enough, and very profoundly too, after the terrifying conflicts of that last climactic sequence, and the serene recall of the 7th and 8th symphonies in the coda. There is a final, or almost-final, coming-to-terms going on here, surely. What could possibly follow?"
I've never been able to listen to itas a three movement piece. All of Bruckner's symphonies - even including "00" and "0" - are cast in four movements and, in fact, so distressing is the experience of listening to the first three movements alone and being short-changed thereafter is so powerful for me that I've listened to the work far less frequently than any of the others until relatively recently when it's been possible to listen to what the four movement whole might have been.

I agree about Te Deum for the very reason that you do.

Yes, there remains the frustration that, of the various folios in Bruckner's hand that have come to light over the years, not a note of the Coda is there - almost certainly because Bruckner didn't get around even to starting it - but at least the map of the journey to the symphony's final peroration is more or less intact and a fair amount of the details of the terrain and the direction of travel are also present.

Placing anything else after the third movement strikes me as perverse!

To clarify - I don't have a preference for the "three-movement version" of Bruckner's 9th; I simply see it as a performance tradition in its own right, with far too long and deep a recorded legacy to be ever laid aside (perhaps not even if the missing pages for the coda to the finale were discovered, though that would be a new challenge to conductors!)
There it is, on record; in the past, the present, for always; in people's hearts and minds.
I meant to add to "what could possibly follow?" - "only Bruckner's finale itself, or the rest is silence".
(frequent short interruptions to the internet here have been very disruptive of copy-and-paste!)
....trying other music after the adagio may be experimentally diverting, but I can't help seeing it as a betrayal after that great struggle and its extraordinarily reposeful resolution.

This symphony does stand apart in Bruckner's cycle: no friendly ländlers, no gemütlich gesangs. The sense of pastoral, of landscape or voices of nature are largely absent (especially striking in the trio, so often the warmest and most rustic passage of Bruckner’s symphonies).
So there is something uniquely final and death-conflicted about the 9th's adagio; there is a letting-go of the world beyond the final climax, very close to the text of the Bach Cantata BWV 82, Ich Habe Genug: "If only the Lord would free me from the bondage of my body... wth joy I would say to you, O world: it is enough." The mortal struggle is almost brutal; the release, the freedom, seemingly complete.

So although (essential historicals like Andreae or Knapperstbusch apart) I can only listen to it in its almost-completed 4-movement form now (and rarely too, given its length and intensity, and my difficulty in playing longer works at one sitting), it's very clear to me why the unfinished 9th has been so fulfilling to so many listeners and performers, and why the completion(s) have remained less often played than some of us would like. If only we could hear more from someone who had first heard, and got to know, the 9th in its recently-completed form: how they viewed the work generally….and if they had felt any bafflement, or “falling-off” in the finale….

(Ich Habe Genug....
If you wish to program-plan around the unfinished 9th, why not play it in Part One, and Bach's BWV 82 in Part 2? You see, that's just the trouble - once you start, there are endless possibilities. But only one true choice - play the finale, or don’t.)

[PaulT]

It's very interesting to me to have this thread develop in the week Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker perform the Samale/Mazzuca/Phillips/Cohrs completion in the Royal Festival Hall as part of his final European tour as their Chief Conductor.

I tried and failed to buy a ticket to the premiere performances of this completion they gave in the Philharmonie in 2012 but I bought the EMI CD immediately upon release and loved it. I found the SMPC completion so convincing that I wondered on first hearing whether it would become my preferred listen for this symphony. It hasn't yet and Wednesday's RFH performance still hasn't quite convinced me. Unlike the attempted completions that have gone before, I think the SMPC quartet have got it right. The previous completions, particularly William Carrigan's, sound more in tune with 1840 style, not 1890 style Bruckner. What disturbs me is Rattle and the BPO's way with Bruckner. The sound is so full and dense that clarity and some enjoyment is lost. I turn to the likes of Gunter Wand for a simpler and more straightforward type of Bruckner interpretation where the music is allowed to unfold more naturally.

I tried something tonight. Playing movements 1 - 3 in BPO/Wand 1998 followed by BPO/Rattle 2012 movement 4. It worked well.

[jayne lee wilson]

Rattle has just performed the SMPC completion again in Berlin on 26/05/18, and it should available in the DCH archive (at max 320kbps, unlike the live feed) by now....it would very interesting to see if his approach has changed....

[PaulT]

Jayne, I heard the live feed from Berlin last Saturday and was in the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday. My own view is I think his approach has not changed much, Richard Fairman writing in the FT was quite enthusiastic about the Bruckner but less so with last night's Brahms 1:

The big statements, though, came with the Austro-German classics. Rattle has long championed the completion of Bruckner’s Symphony No.9 made by a quartet of Bruckner scholars. Whatever one thinks about the new finale, it creates a symphony of awesome scale, which was given a commensurately towering performance. The sheer weight and richness of the Berlin sound was exceptional, like the greatest of Bruckner organs with all the stops out. The memory can play tricks, but surely the Berliner Philharmoniker did not sound as titanic as this even when they played under Karajan?

When he started out in Birmingham, Rattle struggled with Brahms’s symphonies. His Brahms has improved since then, but this performance of the Symphony No.1 remained effortful, thick and heavy, almost glutinous in its sound, and the darkest of glowering pictures of the Romantic soul — an acquired taste.

My own view on the Berliners under Karajan v Rattle: having heard both conductors in RFH and RAH I would rate Karajan way ahead of Rattle in terms of delivering an all-together cohesive sound. Rattle was good, Karajan was awesome.

[ahinton]

To clarify - I don't have a preference for the "three-movement version" of Bruckner's 9th

I know! I never suggested that you did or do...

[Richard Barrett]

I missed the broadcast, but I've just been listening to the three completed movements of Bruckner 9 followed immediately by Lontano. The feeling of disorientation and emptiness when the Ligeti started was a most amazing thing, the feeling of reaching a point of repose at the end of Bruckner and then going beyond it into an unknown realm... even though I know the Ligeti at least as well as the Bruckner it was like hearing it for the first time as a kind of "music of the spheres". I don't think I'd mind at all if this became a tradition. But what interests me more, actually, is getting to that kind of consciousness by other musical means.

[jayne lee wilson]

"Going beyond it into an unknown realm"

Is exactly what I hear happening in Bruckner's finale, as I expressed in #11 above (and have often).
Au fond de l'inconnu pour trouver de NOUVEAU, as Baudelaire's Le Voyage has it. It couldn't possibly have been a finale similar to any of the others, because of the far-flung nature of the earlier movements, the conflict-resolution in the adagio, of where it leaves us, and left Bruckner...

My guess is that this is at least partly why it puzzles or disappoints many listeners. I wish I knew someone who had heard it complete, from the get-go... how would they feel about the finale's character, or the "3-movement version"...?

[ahinton]

"Going beyond it into an unknown realm"

Is exactly what I hear happening in Bruckner's finale, as I expressed in #11 above (and have often).
Au fond de l'inconnu pour trouver de NOUVEAU, as Baudelaire's Le Voyage has it. It couldn't possibly have been a finale similar to any of the others, because of the far-flung nature of the earlier movements, the conflict-resolution in the adagio, of where it leaves us, and left Bruckner...

My guess is that this is at least partly why it puzzles or disappoints many listeners. I wish I knew someone who had heard it complete, from the get-go... how would they feel about the finale's character, or the "3-movement version"...?

Well said, yet again! Yes, that finale just has to explore and engage with some fearsome things that are unknown elsewhere in Bruckner - and, whilst I wish that we could have had what Bruckner would have done, all in his own hand, having at least what we now do is quite something...

[Richard Barrett]

"Going beyond it into an unknown realm"

Is exactly what I hear happening in Bruckner's finale

I surely don't need to emphasise that it's not the "otherness" of the completed finale that bothers me. Rather it's the fact that, as in Bruckner's later finales in general, it gathers momentum towards a closing peroration resolving the entire symphony, which then doesn't happen, or, at least, not in a particularly convincing manner as far as I'm concerned. Maybe eventually a way will be found to put this right, or the missing pages will be located; but until that happens I'll continue to be much more moved (which includes structural as well as emotional considerations) by the work as Bruckner left it. I have my suspicions, in which I'm by no means alone, that one of the reasons it was left like that was that Bruckner himself wasn't convinced by his attempts to follow the three existing movements. I'm not suggesting that he would have been in any way content with only those, since he clearly wasn't, but in a way the lack of a completed finale "speaks" more clearly (to me) than cobbling together its fragments does. I'm not saying this is the "right" way to think, I'm saying it's the way I think. The Lontano experiment makes me imagine a new possibility for "completing" the work without reference to Bruckner's sketches (as I've said about Mahler 10 on various occasions), but no doubt that imaginary music is never going to make it into anyone's hearing other than my own inward one. (A nation breathes a sigh of relief!)

[ahinton]

I surely don't need to emphasise that it's not the "otherness" of the completed finale that bothers me. Rather it's the fact that, as in Bruckner's later finales in general, it gathers momentum towards a closing peroration resolving the entire symphony, which then doesn't happen, or, at least, not in a particularly convincing manner as far as I'm concerned. Maybe eventually a way will be found to put this right, or the missing pages will be located; but until that happens I'll continue to be much more moved (which includes structural as well as emotional considerations) by the work as Bruckner left it. I have my suspicions, in which I'm by no means alone, that one of the reasons it was left like that was that Bruckner himself wasn't convinced by his attempts to follow the three existing movements. I'm not suggesting that he would have been in any way content with only those, since he clearly wasn't, but in a way the lack of a completed finale "speaks" more clearly (to me) than cobbling together its fragments does. I'm not saying this is the "right" way to think, I'm saying it's the way I think. The Lontano experiment makes me imagine a new possibility for "completing" the work without reference to Bruckner's sketches (as I've said about Mahler 10 on various occasions), but no doubt that imaginary music is never going to make it into anyone's hearing other than my own inward one. (A nation breathes a sigh of relief!)

"Maybe eventually a way will be found to put this right, or the missing pages will be located; but until that happens I'll continue to be much more moved (which includes structural as well as emotional considerations) by the work as Bruckner left it"? But Bruckner left it with a substantial proportion of the finale completed and ample precedent exists in his previous symphonies of his intent to write a four movement one again.

I have my suspicions, in which I'm by no means alone, that one of the reasons it was left like that was that Bruckner himself wasn't convinced by his attempts to follow the three existing movements.

That he did take a long time over the finale might be thought to suggest that this was because of doubts about what he could well have felt was the most problematic symphonic movement on which he'd ever embarked, but what I suspect more likely interfered with his thought processes here was his work on revising earlier music which took time and energies away from the job in hand (and I also suspect that, he he resolved not so to revisit and revise, he'd have completed the Ninth himself).

[kea]

Honestly a convincing & honest Bruckner-9-finale-based composition should end quietly in the minor key, like the first movement of the 8th. The material of the last movement that Bruckner left behind doesn't lend itself to a triumphant conclusion, and Bruckner's own death whilst working on it irreversibly changes the context of the music. But that seems to be an unpopular opinion among the raft of composers who want to use the sketches in their quest to write D major triads and have them be accepted and taken seriously as a contemporary composition by musical ~progressives. >.>

[kea]

The sheer weight and richness of the Berlin sound was exceptional, like the greatest of Bruckner organs with all the stops out. The memory can play tricks, but surely the Berliner Philharmoniker did not sound as titanic as this even when they played under Karajan?

also yeah, I've listened to both Rattle's and Karajan's Bruckner 9s and Rattle out-Karajans Karajan in every respect. I'm not sure whether he's actually a better conductor, but the Berlin Phil is definitely a better orchestra.

[Richard Barrett]

Honestly a convincing & honest Bruckner-9-finale-based composition should end quietly in the minor key, like the first movement of the 8th. The material of the last movement that Bruckner left behind doesn't lend itself to a triumphant conclusion

I'll have to think about that, but I like the idea very much. I haven't listened to the current completion for a while, and my recollection is that it was heading towards a triumphant conclusion (which then proved impossible to pull off), but I'm looking forward to having another listen today with your idea in mind. There would also be a case for performing a reconstruction of the extant material and then just leaving out the coda, I think.

Bruckner's own death whilst working on it irreversibly changes the context of the music.

Absolutely.

Edit, after listening to the finale in Rattle's recording: It begins promisingly, to be sure, but loses its way in too much filler (seemingly arbitrary chord sequences with added violin figuration), too much conventional scoring (compared to the preceding movements), too much unfocused, non-thematic material; and the last few minutes are over-dense and clumsily assembled. I don't think I could ever view it as anything but a letdown after the first three movements. My conclusion (for now) is that yes, Bruckner wrote all this stuff and a movement can be made out of it, but that he hadn't yet found the right form with which to bring the symphony to an end, however one might wish that he had. Given this, I find it more enlightening to end the symphony with nothing after the Adagio, or with a piece by Ligeti or someone else, of with some newly composed work; but this completion, for all its pretensions, doesn't convince me at all.

[kea]

I'll have to think about that, but I like the idea very much. I haven't listened to the current completion for a while, and my recollection is that it was heading towards a triumphant conclusion (which then proved impossible to pull off),

It does attempt it, yes—I think most of these are from the 96 bars that had to be forensically reconstructed, using only a Bruckner figured bass line from a sketch. The coda essentially leads up to an apocalyptic & extremely dissonant combination of themes from all 4 movements which works extremely well and is extremely un-Brucknerian (especially the triple rhythm of the scherzo in the timpani against the orchestra in 4/4...), which leads into the harmonically unstable chorale theme, which in turn leads into the V13 ultra-dissonant chord from the climax of the third movement & trumpet fanfares that resolve directly to 20 bars of D major based on the trumpet fanfare in bar 5 of the third movement (something obscure enough that I had to look at a score to figure out why this was being used as the climax of the work—according to SMPC, this is the "Halleluja" motive from some other Bruckner work, but aurally it's not well justified). I think even trading that out for the horn fanfare/reference to the 7th symphony in the very last bars of the 3rd movement would have been an improvement.

There would also be a case for performing a reconstruction of the extant material and then just leaving out the coda, I think.

I think that'd be a very good idea.