BaL 31.12.16 - Bruckner: Symphony no. 3 in D minor

[BBMmk2]

This has been a fascinating thread to read with the mighty of the forum eating humble pie and changing their minds in the nicest possible way. Even TS, perhaps the least appreciated R3 presenter on the forum with the possible exception of KD, making a fine job of a challenging BAL. What a great performance and the 1873 should be the default version. I've had the Tintner for many years and was underwhelmed by that reading, earnest though it is and realising now lacking the sheen and expertise the Leipzig players bring. A pity the BBC couldn't have signaled to suppliers what the winning version would be and then the CD would be flying off the shelves to everyone's benefit.

Not a bad idea! :)

[Beef Oven!]

This has been a fascinating thread to read with the mighty of the forum eating humble pie and changing their minds in the nicest possible way. Even TS, perhaps the least appreciated R3 presenter on the forum with the possible exception of KD, making a fine job of a challenging BAL. What a great performance and the 1873 should be the default version. I've had the Tintner for many years and was underwhelmed by that reading, earnest though it is and realising now lacking the sheen and expertise the Leipzig players bring. A pity the BBC couldn't have signaled to suppliers what the winning version would be and then the CD would be flying off the shelves to everyone's benefit.

Nicely put, and I think that your use of 'default’ (meaning usual or standard) is especially useful as it is does not rule out other versions and does not imply that we should not consider other versions/approaches/performances. Although I think that to say that the 1873 version can be the default version is better. After all, there is much to say that the 1889 version represents Bruckner’s final thoughts on the matter.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Much depends on the decisions of the mega-conductors, and on which CDs we choose to buy.

Default is in the stars and on our shelves.

[P. G. Tipps]

Thanks Scotty, listening now.

Regarding Rozhdestvensky, I have the Moscow Radio & TV Symphony Orchestra in Bruckner 3. That’s not the one you mean though, is it?

No, Beefy, the one I mean is by the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra. The full Bruckner cycle, different versions included, was on You Tube in three parts some months ago. I downloaded the lot.

Alas, I have searched again today and the full cycle seems to have gone though the third version of No 3 is there with the same forces

No bad, though, the raw, rasping sound of the Russian trumpets really come to the fore in this version as well ...

[jayne lee wilson]

Nicely put, and I think that your use of 'default’ (meaning usual or standard) is especially useful as it is does not rule out other versions and does not imply that we should not consider other versions/approaches/performances. Although I think that to say that the 1873 version can be the default version is better. After all, there is much to say that the 1889 version represents Bruckner’s final thoughts on the matter.

Perhaps literally so, but do remember the struggle he appears to have had with Schalk about this, as Griegel says...

"The most significant alterations in the 1889 version are in the finale; Bruckner based his revision of the movement on a version by Franz Schalk. Both passages marked with vi-de in the Stichvorlage of the 1878 version were cut in the 1889 version. The material following the second of these cuts was also completely rewritten by Bruckner, who did not accept Schalk's suggested text for the passage."

It's probably the most obvious example of Bruckner reluctantly following the Schalks' advice, when the original vision of the work's structure had been all but lost. This is why knowledge of the versions mentioned in my various posts above is simply not an "option" with the 3rd, you really have to take it on. It can be most enjoyable, really, especially in the listening!
And probably why those conductors who can't accept or understand the 1873/4 original have tended to "default" more recently to 1878...

Here's some insight into the Rozh question....https://www.abruckner.com/Data/artic...ydownloads.pdf
Melodiya/Venezia USSR M of C SO is the one to trust.

The problem with Rozh's otherwise fine 1873 reading is his bizarrely slow tempo for the scherzo. He doesn't do this in either of the other versions included in the Melodiya/Venezia set, which leads me to wonder if he didn't trust his players to get those tricky syncopations right at anything faster...!

I must say, having returned recently to the 1890 score, how the finale is almost completely dominated by the polka/chorale and various transformations and quotations of the original trumpet motto. There really isn't much more to it than that (Knappertsbusch does wonders with it...)
Then when you consider the simplified scherzo rhythm (good that Tom Service mentioned it, hardly any reviewers do) and the shorter adagio with its all-too-abbreviated climax (I always felt that Simpson was too harsh on the extended Tannhauserisch 1873 adagio climax)...To anyone familiar with 1873, 1889/1890 sounds like Bruckner Goes Pop, an episodic patchwork full of catchy, lovable tunes. Which ironically led to its early popularity on disc and in concert. 1889/90 is the shortest Bruckner symphony whereas the 1873 original is the longest. A story which never ceases to fascinate..

[Nick Armstrong]

Default is in the stars and on our shelves.

Bought the posh crackers this Christmas, eh, ferns?

[Bryn]

I loaded high data rate mp3s of the Schaller recordings of early versions of 1, 2 and 3 onto a CD-R this morning for use in the car on the way to and from work. Really quite taken with the 1874 Third.

[Beef Oven!]

Bought the posh crackers this Christmas, eh, ferns?

[P. G. Tipps]

I completely agree with jlw about the extended climax in the Adagio. Simpson was wrong about that if little else about Bruckner!

I feel exactly the same about that very early huge climax in the 1873 version when the symphony is only two or three minutes old. This is a pale shadow of its former self in the later versions and I find that infuriating as Bruckner was the master of creating lengthy tension in the listener culminating in hard-won, all-the-more-satisfying release? A completely pointless and indeed ruinous cut, imv. The same happened to a glorious climax in the slow movement of the first version of the 4th.

As fhg has also pointed out the longer the length of a Bruckner symphony the quicker it often seems to go!

[Barbirollians]

I completely agree with jlw about the extended climax in the Adagio. Simpson was wrong about that if little else about Bruckner!

I feel exactly the same about that very early huge climax in the 1873 version when the symphony is only two or three minutes old. This is a pale shadow of its former self in the later versions and I find that infuriating as Bruckner was the master of creating lengthy tension in the listener culminating in hard-won, all-the-more-satisfying release? A completely pointless and indeed ruinous cut, imv. The same happened to a glorious climax in the slow movement of the first version of the 4th.

As fhg has also pointed out the longer the length of a Bruckner symphony the quicker it often seems to go!

Celi's recordings would suggest otherwise .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Celi's recordings would suggest otherwise .

[P. G. Tipps]

Celi's recordings would suggest otherwise .

The widely-recognised definitions of 'length' and 'slowness' are hardly the same ... and didn't Celi use the revised versions of the symphonies, in any case?

[Bryn]

Further on Schaller's Bruckner, has anyone here yet heard his completion of the 9th? Not his recording of the Carragan, but his own completion.

[jayne lee wilson]

Bruckner Symphony No.3 (1889 ed. Nowak) Berner SymphonieOrchester/Mario Venzago. CPO CD 2013 (c/w No.6)


What a revelation to hear Venzago directing a performance of the shortest Bruckner 3rd (the 1889 “Now That's What I Call Bruckner" edition) as if it could really be Schubert’s 11th or Mendelssohn’s 6th. Such is the natural transparency of texture, the springy levity of rhythm and swiftly flowing streams of melody, the middle movements especially will make anyone truly “listen again”, and the finale’s coda is uniquely buoyant, clear and classically-voiced: excitement and energy the keynotes, rather than the ubiquitous heavy overlay of conductor-deifying Romantic grandeur. Who needs heroes anymore?

The first movement seems surprisingly moderato, but this allows a lovely rubato-rich, vibrato-lean lyricism to flower across the alpine meadows; a misterioso of the natural world. Venzago, with a Knappertsbusch-like feel for tension and release, those subtle stresses in phrase or paragraph, accelerates away from the main climax even more than Nézet-Séguin, but here sounds closer to the developmental crises in Schubert’s Unfinished than anything Wagnerian. (I was reminded, in the finale too, of that Schubertian, rhythmical rushing-to-despair mode heard in the quartets such as d.810 or d.887.)
The lovely, velvety Berne SO, set fairly close, sounds rather like an auxiliary-reinforced COE. (I do wish they would record Bruckner with someone, the way they did Sibelius with Berglund…). It is a slightly "soft" orchestral character which may need a higher-than-usual volume to allow detail to emerge clearly.

The adagio and trio really sing and dance here, spiritual and sonic sisters to Schubert in andante con moto mode (cf. 4th and 6th Symphonies' 2nd movements), and the principal horn has an Orphic purity. Yet Venzago will dare theshold-of-audibility tremolandos at the adagio’s close. You’ll want to put it straight on repeat.

There’s no getting around the disjointedness of the 1889 edition, but played this way, it almost makes sense of this abridged and patchworked text, because the symphony is, stylistically, returned to its chronological place in Bruckner’s development and that of the classical symphony: after Schubert. The more remarkable for the performers to bring that out so vividly, when it was another remake-and-remodel, with at least some degree of pressured reluctance, from near the end of the composer’s life.

[Beef Oven!]

Further on Schaller's Bruckner, has anyone here yet heard his completion of the 9th? Not his recording of the Carragan, but his own completion.

Good question, I was wondering about that recording (even though we’re told conductors should not meddle like this ). Sorry, I’m not much help - I haven’t heard it!