Bruckner 9 BPO/Rattle - the 4 Movement Recording

[Petrushka]

This is an astounding disc! Even judged on the three movement torso that we know, on the strength of this recording alone Simon Rattle joins the elite amongst Bruckner conductors - yes, that includes Karajan, Haitink and Jochum. A previous recording of the 4th failed to convince and constituted 'work in progress', though a CBSO 7th is a better pointer to SR's development as a Bruckner conductor. Never before have I heard Bruckner's grinding dissonances in every movement brought out so vividly as in this 9th. I hope SR goes on to give us a cycle.

But we don't have just the three movement torso on this CD; we also have the finale as completed by Samale/Phillips/Cohrs/Mazzuca. On a first hearing I find this difficult to assess and will need a few more outings before I can make a judgment.

The sound has tremendous depth and clarity, not at all what one normally associates with the Philharmonie in Berlin.

Disc of the year for me, I think.

[pastoralguy]

Isn't there a Naxos disc of the 9th Symphony with a completion of the 4th movt?

[PJPJ]

There is, and several other recordings, studio and broadcast...

http://www.abruckner.com/discography/symphonyno9indmino/

[pastoralguy]

Thanks for the link. Very interesting material.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There is, and several other recordings, studio and broadcast...

http://www.abruckner.com/discography...onyno9indmino/

So many versions. And I used to think the whole Bruckner thing was complicated enough already.

Can anyone recommend any of the completions? This does interest me.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Can anyone recommend any of the completions? This does interest me.

Of the three I've heard in the last 30 years (!), this one was the one I found most convincing. It certainly sounded to me more "Brucknerian" than others - but more like the Bruckner of the Third Symphony, or even the "0" than that of the rest of the Ninth. Obviously an unfair assessment, based on only three hearings since Saturday morning's broadcast, but I heard two or three moments of glorious Music surrounded by quite a bit of "twiddling" modulation and thematic fragmentation. But enough "gloriousness" to make me want to hear it again.

[ahinton]

The problem here with the various versions and revisions of versions is that, since the entire history of attempts to assemble the finale of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony began, various matgerial in the composer's hand has been discovered and there's now far more of it available to editors than was once envisaged. Of course, there is no Coda, which is frustrating - and I do wonder if the composer got his proportions quite right here, in that the journey from depths almost unknown elsewhere in Bruckner to what would surely have been intended to be the greatest Brucknerian peroration of them all seems to me to be a longer one than in the finale as we have it.

Of the various recordings of the work in its four-movement version, this latest one stands head and shoulders above the others and is the one most likely finally to consign the long-established three-movement version performing tradition to the dust that it so well deserves.

[jayne lee wilson]

I think that's a bit extreme AH (can anything be a "bit" extreme? Ah well...). One of my first LPs was Klemperer's and I had some great experiences with it. But that, and hearing so many 3-movement performances since, means there is an unbridgeable gap of familiarity between the "torso" and the reconstructed finale. Like it or not, the 3-movement version is a part of musical and performance history, a rich tradition of recorded interpretation.

I put off buying the Rattle because of this problem (and a personal need to hear the new and unfamiliar more than the well-known) but I guess I'll have to get it now and find out for myself. Got an awful feeling I'll be underwhelmed (if only a bit). I'll try to report back, time is the evil just now.

I think sometimes one has to accept that a work of art, finished or not, takes on a life of its own once released into the public domain, and listeners and performers will, creatively or not (slavishly perhaps) make of it what they can.

But whether this version of the finale will always be performed with the other movements, or effect a transformation of how most listeners and performers view the work, is surely unknowable. Play it and see, and wait...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... there is an unbridgeable gap of familiarity between the "torso" and the reconstructed finale. Like it or not, the 3-movement version is a part of musical and performance history, a rich tradition of recorded interpretation.

Quite. My problem with any attempt to present a performing version of the Finale of the Ninth is that I'm used to Furtwangler, Jochum, Karajan, Klemperer et al performing it with the Third Movement "as" a Finale. To continue to a next Movement requires a conductor to conclude the Coda of the Third Movement in a completely different way, one that will seem "wrong" until I get used to it. Rattle is the only conductor of comparable stature to those I've mentioned - but I'm not keen on his way with Bruckner's Seventh! I feel like those elderly conductors who didn't want to touch the Mahler/Cooke "Tenth" - a whole lifetime's preconceptions to replace. (And then, how will I respond to the incomplete Bruckner Ninth: will I lose the special feeling I have for the work as it "is" to me now; one which has stood by me so often in those dark moments?)

I put off buying the Rattle because of this problem (and a personal need to hear the new and unfamiliar more than the well-known) but I guess I'll have to get it now and find out for myself. Got an awful feeling I'll be underwhelmed (if only a bit).

Jayne; Rattle's performance of the entire "Finale" is still available on the i-Player from the end of last Saturday's CD Review: I've listened to it three times so far.

[Petrushka]

Of the three I've heard in the last 30 years (!), this one was the one I found most convincing. It certainly sounded to me more "Brucknerian" than others - but more like the Bruckner of the Third Symphony, or even the "0" than that of the rest of the Ninth. Obviously an unfair assessment, based on only three hearings since Saturday morning's broadcast, but I heard two or three moments of glorious Music surrounded by quite a bit of "twiddling" modulation and thematic fragmentation. But enough "gloriousness" to make me want to hear it again.

I know I said I'd reserve judgement on the finale but.... after a single hearing of the complete CD this was my impression too. The problem I'm mindful of is listening to music I've known for 30 years + alongside music I've never heard before. This is a major problem that does not arise with Mahler 10 or Elgar 3. The finale lacks memorable ideas and does indeed sound more like early Bruckner. More hearings may change that impression.

The performance of the 'torso' is breathtakingly wonderful, a truly great Bruckner interpretation and I've thought of playing it like that and having the finale as a stand alone piece if I really don't get on with it. More hearings of the complete work are necessary before I decide.

[Mr Pee]

Of the various recordings of the work in its four-movement version, this latest one stands head and shoulders above the others and is the one most likely finally to consign the long-established three-movement version performing tradition to the dust that it so well deserves.

Three complete movements of some of Bruckner's most glorious music consigned to the dust in favour of a four movement version with an added cobbled-together finale?

More than a little extreme, I would say.

[scottycelt]

Of the three I've heard in the last 30 years (!), this one was the one I found most convincing. It certainly sounded to me more "Brucknerian" than others - but more like the Bruckner of the Third Symphony, or even the "0" than that of the rest of the Ninth. Obviously an unfair assessment, based on only three hearings since Saturday morning's broadcast, but I heard two or three moments of glorious Music surrounded by quite a bit of "twiddling" modulation and thematic fragmentation. But enough "gloriousness" to make me want to hear it again.

Spot on, imv ... the latest version is the most convincing but maybe slightly backward-looking in style which, otherwise, this symphony certainly isn't!

It's well worth hearing, though, and I would say the completions to avoid are those by Carragan which sound to me nothing like Bruckner, and that is very curious as William C is a most distinguished Brucknerian!

Can't wait for the Berlin Phil and Rattle to perform this work at the Proms, as they surely must? ... tbh, I was hoping it might have been this year.

[Bryn]

Re. SC's comment on the (most recent?) Carragan performing version of Bruckner's drafts for the finale of the 9th, when Rob Cowan spun a recording of it a month or two ago during Essential Classics, he expressed the view that it made the four movement performance of the symphony successful. I will try and dig out his precise wording. I would much rather hear the symphony with either of the two most recent performing editions/completions of the drafts of the finale than make do with the 'bleeding chunk' which is the first three movements which Bruckner managed to complete (at least in initial versions). Let's face it, had Bruckner lived on a year or two longer, he would quite likely have done further work on the first three movements after completing the draft of the finale.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Let's face it, had Bruckner lived on a year or two longer, he would quite likely have done further work on the first three movements after completing the draft of the finale.

... but the obvious riposte is that, alas, he didn't. And the incomplete torso as it stands can make a sublime and convincing ending to the work that the completions don't. For me. Yet.

(Amazon have the Rattle on MP3 Download for a fiver [if you buy it with another similarly priced]: I feel the temptation!)

[ahinton]

I think that's a bit extreme AH (can anything be a "bit" extreme? Ah well...). One of my first LPs was Klemperer's and I had some great experiences with it. But that, and hearing so many 3-movement performances since, means there is an unbridgeable gap of familiarity between the "torso" and the reconstructed finale. Like it or not, the 3-movement version is a part of musical and performance history, a rich tradition of recorded interpretation.

I put off buying the Rattle because of this problem (and a personal need to hear the new and unfamiliar more than the well-known) but I guess I'll have to get it now and find out for myself. Got an awful feeling I'll be underwhelmed (if only a bit). I'll try to report back, time is the evil just now.

I think sometimes one has to accept that a work of art, finished or not, takes on a life of its own once released into the public domain, and listeners and performers will, creatively or not (slavishly perhaps) make of it what they can.

But whether this version of the finale will always be performed with the other movements, or effect a transformation of how most listeners and performers view the work, is surely unknowable. Play it and see, and wait...

Jayne, I do so agree with much of what you write here, even if only because it's going to be hard to dislodge people's well- and long-established expectations; I think nevertheless that the most important fact to bear in mind at all times here is that Bruckner intended this work to be a four-movement symphony right from before the get-go - and, as such, this is how we should listen to it if at all possible, which is it now far more than it's ever been before!