Bruckner 9 BPO/Rattle - the 4 Movement Recording

[jayne lee wilson]

Or of 'improving' Beethoven.

Did Mahler really see it as "improving" though? Or was it just "let's try it this way..."?

[antongould]

Could not resist getting the download and find it quite wonderful - IMHO easily the best completion so far and superb playing throughout. It probably does lack the awesome coda you feel the great man would have, or maybe already had, written. If only his doctor had set his cassette recorder running!

[Panjandrum]

Precisely! What matters anbove all is what Bruckner intended - and that was never, but absolutely never, any kind of "three-movement torso"

I think we all know that Bruckner didn't intend to leave the symphony a 3 movement torso. Problem is that his maker pulled the plug on his time on this mortal coil.

A better analogy than the ones you've proposed is with Schubert's B minor symphony. Its popular title gives the clue that it wasn't intended as a two movement work. However, anyone who heard its "completion" on the BBC Schubertfest would take the "Unfinished" version ahead, any day. However competent the completion of Bruckner 9 has been, there can be no gainsaying that it does not breathe sufficient majesty to be a satisfying conclusion to such an awe inspiring work when compared with the three preceding movements. Quite possibly, Bruckner himself recognised this, which is why he had such difficulty in finishing the symphony, and why he proposed the Te Deum as the finale, rather than getting a colleague to complete the work from the sketches.

[Beef Oven]

I think we all know that Bruckner didn't intend to leave the symphony a 3 movement torso. Problem is that his maker pulled the plug on his time on this mortal coil.

A better analogy than the ones you've proposed is with Schubert's B minor symphony. Its popular title gives the clue that it wasn't intended as a two movement work. However, anyone who heard its "completion" on the BBC Schubertfest would take the "Unfinished" version ahead, any day. However competent the completion of Bruckner 9 has been, there can be no gainsaying that it does not breathe sufficient majesty to be a satisfying conclusion to such an awe inspiring work when compared with the three preceding movements. Quite possibly, Bruckner himself recognised this, which is why he had such difficulty in finishing the symphony, and why he proposed the Te Deum as the finale, rather than getting a colleague to complete the work from the sketches.

1) Recently I was at the RFH for Yannick Nezet Seguin & the London Philharmonic's Bruckner concert; Christus Factus Est, Symphony #9, Te Deum.

Before the start, Yannick addressed the audience from the stage through a mic and explained that the 3 pieces would be played without break and asked us to save our applause until the end of the Te Deum in order to add to the 'spiritual' feeling of the whole concert.

I have to say that the performance was wonderful and there was something ineffably right about these 3 works being run together.

I was surprised how well it worked.

The following week some friends from the Bruckner Journal travelled to Berlin for a Rattle/BPO performance of the 4 movement recon.

2) I bought the Rattle disc. Thought it was a great performance. The most convincing recon.

3) Prior to all this I dipped in and out of the Naxos release of the recon released a few years back, but Bruckner's 9th was always a 3 movement work.

4) I am now confused about the matter.

[Panjandrum]

1) I am now confused about the matter.

I'll have another listen to the Rattle (an interesting divergence of opinions on Amazon BTW). First impressions were, that while magnificently played, the effect was that something ineffably majestic was missing.

[Beef Oven]

I'll have another listen to the Rattle (an interesting divergence of opinions on Amazon BTW). First impressions were, that while magnificently played, the effect was that something ineffably majestic was missing.

Yes, but I was careful to qualify Rattle's performance in the context of the reconstruction, not the 9th in general - the competition there is way too stiff for Sir Simon of Rattles!

I will check the Amazon reviews, I'd forgotten about that - usually pretty interesting.

P.S. If B's looking down, I wonder just how 'effable' his feedback would be!

[BBMmk2]

Ive heard this cd and yes, it's quite an astonishing disc! I do tend to agree though that the 4th movement Finale does need several ouitings before one has a certain idea about what was being said and the idea of the whople meovement to.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

:
A better analogy than the ones you've proposed is with Schubert's B minor symphony. Its popular title gives the clue that it wasn't intended as a two movement work. However, anyone who heard its "completion" on the BBC Schubertfest would take the "Unfinished" version ahead, any day.

As Schubert's sketches indicate, this was already a 3-movement work, and I, for one, expect to hear that arresting start to the third movement, whenever the slow movement ends. It's the use of the B flat minor Entr'acte from Rosamunde as the finale that I find unsatisfactory; it's too stuttering and tame to close this magnificent work. I hope that one day, evidence of Schubert's intentions with be discovered.

[Pabmusic]

As Schubert's sketches indicate, this was already a 3-movement work, and I, for one, expect to hear that arresting start to the third movement, whenever the slow movement ends. It's the use of the B flat minor Entr'acte from Rosamunde as the finale that I find unsatisfactory; it's too stuttering and tame to close this magnificent work. I hope that one day, evidence of Schubert's intentions with be discovered.

I quite agree. The B minor Entr'acte is not entirely satisfactory (though it depends on how it's played - and whether you include an exposition repeat, or end the whole thing in B minor or major - all this is easy to do and could even be justified!). However, there's a very reasonable case for its having been at least a sketch for the last movement. The important thing to remember is that Schubert didn't actually use it.

I have conducted a performance of the 'Finished' symphony, and it does go very well. Schubert stopped working on it for several reasons (the exact truth will never be known), but the technical difficulty of writing for brass in B minor was likely one of them.

[ahinton]

ahinton: A serious question if I may. As a composer yourself, supposing that you left one of your own compositions incomplete upon your demise. How would you view a completion (if you could view it!) by hands other than your own?

Had I already died, I would not "view" it at all! If, on the other hand, I found myself in the kind of situation that Elgar did with his Third Symphony - i.e. knowing that he would not survive to finish it - I imagine that I would have reacted to such a prospect rather as Elgar himself did, i.e. vacillating between the hope that someone would come and do the job well and fearing that someone might make a complete hash of it. Much, of course, would have to depend upon how much of the work was complete by the time of my death, how many clues for the rest that I'd be able to leave (which, in my case, would be very few, since I almost never sketch anything first) and whether I knew of anyone who might be able to complete it and had opportunities to discuss my wishes with that person before shuffling off my mortail coil.

The case of Bruckner, however, is rather different, in that we've only come to realise relatively recently just how much of the finale of the Ninth Symphony he'd actually composed - and there remains the faint possibility that yet more in his hand might turn up; also, there's no evidence that Bruckner realised that he'd be unable to complete the full score of the finale in his own hand...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

However, imagine any great 4-movement work that you know, then remove its finale. Could what remains still be "a sublime and convincing ending"?

Curious you should say this, Alpie. Until I attended Wand's last Prom performance of Bruckner's Eighth (and then the last Karajan recording) I always felt that that work had said all that it needed to say by the end of the Third Movement. Wand and Karajan both not only changed my opinion for future performances, but enabled me to hear the virtues in the Jochum (DG) recording that I'd missed before.

I repeat, I'm not hostile to a Ninth Finale; but there I carry a lot of intense emotional baggage about the work that will be very difficult for me to overcome.

(Apologies for all the "me", "my", "I"s here: not - for once - an egothon, but an attempt to make absolutely clear that my personal attitude here is precisely that; not a dismissal of Rattle et al's endeavours per se.)

[ahinton]

Forgive me, but I cannot understand how a "completion", based upon a composer's uncompleted thoughts, can ever "consign to the dust" that composer's final composition.

No, I'm sure you can't - but nor can I, because that's not what I wrote! I referred to the notion that this particular recording of this particular completion should consign to the dust the acceptance of the work as just its first three movements - in other words, I see it as likely being the harbinger of a performing tradition that other orchestras will follow when performing this symphony, with one end result that generations of ,isteners will not have to listen to it in its truncated form as all of us have had to do.

Why is there a need to "complete" a symphony?

Because that's what the composer would want to do!

Does the process serve the composer, the listener- or the musicologist?

It will depend in each case on how successfully it is done, of course, but it should serve all three.

I have never listened to the three movement Bruckner 9 and thought, "Damn, I wish there was a fourth movement".

I have never NOT done so!

On the contrary, I have come the end of that great Adagio- and the end of that symphony, as far as I am concerned- more in awe of Bruckner than ever.

Well, that I can well understand, of course! - but I think that pretending that this was where it would all end does netiher you nor the composer nor anyone else any favours. Surely even you recognise that our current knowledge of just how much of that finale Bruckner himself actually wrote alters the situation materially from the days when the received "wisdom" was that there were only a handful of disjointed fragments in his hand?

[ahinton]

However competent the completion of Bruckner 9 has been, there can be no gainsaying that it does not breathe sufficient majesty to be a satisfying conclusion to such an awe inspiring work when compared with the three preceding movements. Quite possibly, Bruckner himself recognised this, which is why he had such difficulty in finishing the symphony, and why he proposed the Te Deum as the finale, rather than getting a colleague to complete the work from the sketches.

Whilst I agree with you about the close of the symphony, you seem to put to one side the question of just how much of the finale Bruckner himself actually wrote. And, by the way, he never propoed the Te Deum as its finale - merely that it could be performed in place of it, which is a quite different thing!

[Roehre]

Whilst I agree with you about the close of the symphony, you seem to put to one side the question of just how much of the finale Bruckner himself actually wrote. And, by the way, he never proposed the Te Deum as its finale - merely that it could be performed in place of it, which is a quite different thing!

Bruckner's remark re the Te Deum was jokingly made, as the symphony was dedicated to the Good Lord, and Te Deum is therefore an appropriate work. But ending a symphony in d with a work in C? Out of the question.
Transposing doesn't work either, as in that case especially the soprano parts are nearing the verge of vocal impossibillities

[mathias broucek]

Listened to this last night.

I was very impressed with the interpretation of the first three movements (and I have over 20 version) and will certainly want to return. Pretty good sound, which is a relief after the Brahms/Schoenberg disc which I didn't like the sound of at all.

I'm with Jayne on movement 4. It's such a struggle moving from the very familier to the new. But I think we should all be grateful to the editors that we have some more Bruckner to listen to! Whilst I doubt that it will overtake the finales of the 5th and 8th in my affections, I'm looking forward to getting to know it better.