Favourite Bruckner symphony recordings?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

So what's wrong with being perfectly incomplete? Schubert set an excellent precedent!

I agree - and "perfectly incomplete" is rather neat (and the exisiting completions are far from "perfect" for all the wonderful, authentic Bruckner they allow us to hear). But it remains "incomplete" for all that.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes, but surely what ferney is objecting to is the - dare I say it - grotesque lack of tonal connection between D minor and E major.

Yes - "grotesque" in the terms of symphonic writing that Bruckner thought and worked in. Unlike "Progressive Tonality" of Nielsen and Mahler, the "concluding" Tonality isn't set up by the composer at/near the start - it's just where he ended at that point on the symphonic "journey".

In the case of Bruckner's 9th there is absolutely no sense of a 'progression' from D minor to E major. But if the Scherzo had been written in, say, A minor instead of D minor, then there could have been at least some sense of progression, using A minor as a sort of 'bridging tonality' to the 3rd movement's E major.

Oh! Perhaps the finished movements should be performed with the order of the scherzo and slow movements reversed?


(Away from such flippancies, the endings of both the Schubert and Bruckner "unfinished" symphonies being in E major might well be a good reason why they work so well together in concerts.)

[kea]

I think the ending of Bruckner 9's adagio is clearly "unfinished" not only in that it's in E major, but in that the final gesture is reaching upwards (whereas the concluding gestures of the previous two movements, and every other Bruckner symphony, move downwards). Bruckner was sufficiently keen to make sure the performance didn't finish with the Adagio that he suggested one follow it with the Te Deum, which is in C major (and shares some motivic material with the finale sketches, actually), so I'm not sure how much difference "tonal unity" would make.

I also don't see why it should be particularly difficult to produce a satisfying conclusion to the finale, and don't completely understand the apparent failure of SMPC or Carragan (haven't heard other completions). Like it wouldn't be too hard to combine themes/rhythmic outlines from all four movements as one source claims Bruckner planned to do, whereas for the SMPC ending I had to read the notes to find out where the main trumpet motive came from (a short phrase heard all of twice in the third movement, about 40 minutes ago...) and with Carragan the very opening of the symphony is somewhat paradoxically too unstable to act as a convincing ending due to the tonic pedal creating a sort of tension that's released in the following trumpet fanfare. Maybe it's just because they aren't composers? (Richard B, how would you complete Bruckner's 9th? )

There's some stuff I still don't understand such as the claim of one disciple that Bruckner wanted to end with the "alleluja" of the 2nd movement—presumably this means the reference to Handel's Hallelujah Chorus that some commentators have heard in the scherzo, but I've never actually been able to figure out where that reference is. Also a lot of assumptions that he would have ended it similarly to the finale of the 8th, but I don't know where they come from exactly, whether he said or sketched something similar. It's interesting that the sketch they use for the ending is an 8-bar pedal on a dominant eleventh, which looks back towards the climax of the adagio and would be very effective (seeing as that climax was never resolved), but whether that was meant to be the very definitely final ending we of course have no idea.

[Richard Barrett]

Maybe it's just because they aren't composers? (Richard B, how would you complete Bruckner's 9th? )

I don't have that kind of relationship with Bruckner... but I think you're right. For me, far and away the most compelling "completions" of a composer's unfinished work are Lulu and the Schubert 10th symphony sketches, by Cerha and Berio respectively. (In the case of the Schubert there's a musicologically worthy version by Brian Newbould which I find as dry as sawdust.) The problem with the scholars is that they have such a narrow view of what's justifiable. The unconvincing completion attempts of Bruckner's 9th seem to indicate that he needed some new insight/inspiration to finish the finale, which at the time of his death hadn't yet been forthcoming, and that gap isn't going to be bridged by scholarship, however steeped in Bruckner's other music one might be.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think the ending of Bruckner 9's adagio is clearly "unfinished" not only in that it's in E major, but in that the final gesture is reaching upwards (whereas the concluding gestures of the previous two movements, and every other Bruckner symphony, move downwards). Bruckner was sufficiently keen to make sure the performance didn't finish with the Adagio that he suggested one follow it with the Te Deum, which is in C major (and shares some motivic material with the finale sketches, actually), so I'm not sure how much difference "tonal unity" would make.

Yes - the composer's suggestion that the Te Deum might be used after the third movement shows that he wasn't happy with ending with the last bars of that Movement. And C major (a major second below the overall Tonic) would at least tentatively balance out E major (a major second above it). You know the sketches - do they suggest show that the ending of the Third Movement acts as chord II in a huge composing out of the II - V (the end of the Exposition of the Finale) - I (the end of the whole work)? (In other words - what's the key at the end of the Exposition of the Finale?)

I also don't see why it should be particularly difficult to produce a satisfying conclusion to the finale, and don't completely understand the apparent failure of SMPC or Carragan (haven't heard other completions). Like it wouldn't be too hard to combine themes/rhythmic outlines from all four movements as one source claims Bruckner planned to do, whereas for the SMPC ending I had to read the notes to find out where the main trumpet motive came from (a short phrase heard all of twice in the third movement, about 40 minutes ago...) and with Carragan the very opening of the symphony is somewhat paradoxically too unstable to act as a convincing ending due to the tonic pedal creating a sort of tension that's released in the following trumpet fanfare. Maybe it's just because they aren't composers? (Richard B, how would you complete Bruckner's 9th? )

Yes - it should be straightforward. But the trouble for musicologists is that they can only look backwards at what a composer has done in previous works; composers of Bruckner's stature always look forward at ways in which they can do things differently. And the problem for composers is that they want to do things how they would do it, not how (in this case) Bruckner might have done it. (In that sense, the concluding tamtam at the end of the Elgar/Payne Symphony is simultaneously the most and least "authentic" moment in that - wonderful - work.) The "Cooke" Mahler 10 is so successful because Mahler made all the essential details clear and because the details were worked out by a combination of a Musicologist devoted to the composer, and three composers whose imaginations were fired by what Mahler had given them, but whose personalities were never going to obscure Mahler's.

It's so tantalizing - there is so much Bruckner there, but right at the point where you need him most, he vanishes!

[Richard Barrett]

the problem for composers is that they want to do things how they would do it, not how (in this case) Bruckner might have done it

I don't think that's a "problem" at all! Since it's impossible to know how Bruckner might have done it, the alternative is either the unimaginative scholarly approach or one which doesn't pretend that it's doing anything but reimagining the music from a different perspective...

The "Cooke" Mahler 10 is so successful

Well, I don't really think it is (see above). And it's problematic in setting a benchmark for how these things "ought" to be done.