Do British Orchestras 'Get' Bruckner?

[Petrushka]

I played the new Bruckner 4 recording this evening from Haitink and the LSO and, as I recall from a Radio 3 broadcast of the original concert last June, it is a very fine account indeed. Except...well, except that there is something indefinable missing and it's something that bugs me every time I hear a Bruckner symphony played by a British orchestra no matter how distinguished. All the notes are played and in the right order but that something that isn't there is the very essence of Bruckner that leads me to the conclusion that British orchestras don't really 'get' Bruckner.

To be sure, there are some much praised examples out there of Bruckner from British orchestras such as the Klemperer B6 and the Horenstein B8 & B9, Giulini B7, Matacic B3 among them, but, along with Gunter Wand's work with the BBCSO, they all seem too English and that the achievement has been made through the conductor stamping his authority on the players through many rehearsals. You can argue that this is the case with any composer but I think that Bruckner presents a unique phenomenom that sets him apart in this respect.

Is it the sound of a British orchestra that is incompatible with Bruckner or is it the lack of a long performing tradition?

Any thoughts?

[cloughie]

I played the new Bruckner 4 recording this evening from Haitink and the LSO and, as I recall from a Radio 3 broadcast of the original concert last June, it is a very fine account indeed. Except...well, except that there is something indefinable missing and it's something that bugs me every time I hear a Bruckner symphony played by a British orchestra no matter how distinguished. All the notes are played and in the right order but that something that isn't there is the very essence of Bruckner that leads me to the conclusion that British orchestras don't really 'get' Bruckner.

To be sure, there are some much praised examples out there of Bruckner from British orchestras such as the Klemperer B6 and the Horenstein B8 & B9, Giulini B7, Matacic B3 among them, but, along with Gunter Wand's work with the BBCSO, they all seem too English and that the achievement has been made through the conductor stamping his authority on the players through many rehearsals. You can argue that this is the case with any composer but I think that Bruckner presents a unique phenomenom that sets him apart in this respect.

Is it the sound of a British orchestra that is incompatible with Bruckner or is it the lack of a long performing tradition?

Any thoughts?

LPO Tennstedt didn't do a bad job
HO Skrowaczewski ditto
RSNO Tintner ditto

What may be questionable is how many British conductors do Bruckner - Colin davis, Rattle .....

[Petrushka]

LPO Tennstedt didn't do a bad job
HO Skrowaczewski ditto
RSNO Tintner ditto

What may be questionable is how many British conductors do Bruckner - Colin davis, Rattle .....

I momentarily forgot LPO/Tennstedt but the same applies to a greater or lesser degree.

Both Colin Davis and Simon Rattle have recorded Bruckner but that maddening missing link is still ... missing.

[Norfolk Born]

It could be argued that the BBCSO 'got' Bruckner's 8th under Reginald Goodall at a Prom in the late 1960s - at least, it sounded pretty Brucknerian in the hall.

[Nick Armstrong]

LPO Tennstedt didn't do a bad job

... indeed they made a much better fist of No. 8 for my money than the VPO under Karajan...

[Serial_Apologist]

Perhaps the reason I'm not sure what there is to get or not get is down to having heard too much Bruckner performed by British orchestras?

[Colonel Danby]

Well I have both Rattle and the CBSO, and Karajan and the VPO on DG, and I couldn't be without either (especially as they are performed with different editions). I can't really see the problem of British orchestras tackling Bruckner: some of my favourite accounts came with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Proms, Haitink in 7, and two conducted by Günter Wand in 8.

It would be like foreign orchestras been forbidden to attempt British music because "they just don't get it". Thus leads the way to xenophobia, which would not be good skills...

[jayne lee wilson]

Petrenko did the 4th here with the RLPO a few years ago, a thrillingly idiomatic performance just over the hour, fully, roundly and richly-entoned, weighty, direct and dramatic! It could have been Knappertsbusch on a good night. Oh yes, it can be done with English orchestras - if it's more rarely experienced here, it may be partly due to the string playing, the character or tradition of sound in austro-german bands being closer to the source, but on that night in Liverpool Petrenko seemed to reinforce the bass sound in the orchestra, both in the lower strings and most thrillingly and dramatically in the timpani, to create an overwhelmingly Brucknerian experience!

Nor is there much missing in Welser-Most's live LPO 5th from 1993 - playing it in the Wien Konzerthaus probably helped! Or is that it perhaps - is it the sound of the halls themselves that's missing in Britain? Or the sound of the orchestras that develops in relation to those European acoustic spaces?

But experience tells me that the conductor can triumph over almost any perceived "characteristic" limitations.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... indeed they made a much better fist of No. 8 for my money than the VPO under Karajan...

Praise indeed.

[BBMmk2]

Rattle and the LSO gave a moving performance(was it last year 2010?), which Bruckner now I cannot remember!! But certainloy was rather good and very Brucknerian, in depth feel and sound!

[Richard Tarleton]

There is so little Bruckner played in Cardiff and Swansea that one is grateful for anything but having said that I've heard two fine B7s in 2011 played by Welsh orchestras - the Orchestra of WNO under Lothar Koenigs (they do play Wagner fairly regularly) and BBC NOW under Kazushi Ono - new to me but an impressive CV, and he's the first I've seen since a younger Haitink to conduct it without a score. It was a magnificent performance (I've heard many B7s since my first 40 years ago).

I cut my Bruckner teeth with Haitink and the LPO in the 1970s - they were a fine Bruckner orchestra then. My greatest live Bruckner experiences in recent years have been with Haitink and the LSO, Concertegebouw and CSO....I was a little underwhelmed by an LSO B6 in the Barbican with Davis a few years back........
I was introduced to Bruckner by someone who'd heard Furtwangler conduct 7 in Vienna around 1951, so perhaps everything's relative.

[Mahlerei]

Jiri and the BBCSO did a memorable Bruckner 9th at the Proms a few years back. Was one of the highlights of the season for me.

[BBMmk2]

Was it the 5th that Rattle did with the LSO recently?

[Petrushka]

Was it the 5th that Rattle did with the LSO recently?

Think it was the 9th, BBM, preceded by the Messiaen Et Exspecto... I caught that on the radio and thought it was definitely a case of 'work in progress'.

Yes, I've heard Rattle, Wand, Tennstedt and Haitink with British orchestras at the Proms and elsewhere and, like many of the examples given, they were all very fine without my thinking that the players were not really into the idiom. Jayne's example of Petrenko highlights the hard work that conductors undertake in endeavouring to capture the right sound.

Perhaps I'm all wrong about this but I felt it instantly many years ago when I heard the Klemperer recording of the Bruckner 6 and it didn't sound right at all. I felt it again last night with the LSO/Haitink 4th.

[Alison]

British orchestras can't seem to produce what I think of as the brown and gold sounds ideal for Bruckner.

However much I admire the LSO stainless steel comes to mind.

Perhaps the Philharmonia would have the nod in Bruckner: who to conduct them though ?

The other side of the coin is that I don't much care for Tchaikovsky or DSCH in Berlin or Vienna.

But then these generalisations can get in the way a bit.

I treasure the LSO/Haitink Fourth.