Bruckner: Symphony no. 3 in D minor BaL 31/12/16

[Beef Oven!]

Have we overlooked the European Philharmonic - Peter Jan Marthé recording?

Very much looking forward to this BaL. I just hope that it doesn’t get bogged down in version city.

[jayne lee wilson]

Have we overlooked the European Philharmonic - Peter Jan Marthé recording?

Very much looking forward to this BaL. I just hope that it doesn’t get bogged down in version city.

Well no, not bogged down, no - but it - Tom Service - can hardly avoid the issue can he? You seem pretty clued up on editions these days Beef, if you were in his position, wouldn't you try to make it more of an Interpretations on Record... ?

But sweeping past the question of editions for one or two "top recommendations" would seem to be living in the past, now, surely, given the many excellent, recent recordings of 1873 to add to all the previous recordings of revised editions. No intelligent reviewer can just rough-house it past all that - it is an essential, perhaps THE essential, aspect of this work's historical, recorded and performed existence.

I mean, ONE SINGLE recommendation for B3? I guess it might work as self-parody.......

***
I think it is a shame that some listeners, doubtless following Korstvedt, have become so readily dismissive of the work of Robert Haas (only controversial in the case of two symphonies, 2 and 8 - his work on the 1873 3rd, lost during the war except for a single set of uncorrected proofs, formed the basis of Nowak's 1977 publication). He was a faithful Brucknerian, careful and subtle in his (brief) emendations to versions of the 2nd and 8th symphonies, self-evidently tussling with the question of which revisions Bruckner had truly authorised and which were more the result of misguided influences from his friends and supportive musicians. Of course it would seem preferable to perform only the composer-authorised editions, now better authenticated and quite numerous enough. I would usually prefer this approach myself. But if Haas' work was really so irresponsibly licentious, why do so many thoughtful, sensitive Brucknerian conductors still use his editions today?
(It's worth mentioning too, that Nowak retained the passages Haas restored from 2/1872 in his edition of 2/1877. Carragan's editions of both would now appear to supersede those earlier efforts definitively.)

[Stanfordian]

Me too. The new Staatskapelle Dresden/Nezet Seguin CD of the 1873 version is on my Christmas wish list so Santa might oblige...

With the original version of 1873 the recent release by the Staatskapelle Dresden under Nezet Seguin is a wonderful recording recorded live at Sempereoper Dresden on Profil.

Using the 1889 version, edited Leopold Nowak I have also been enjoying the live account Münchner Philharmoniker under Lorin Maazel from the Philharmonie, Munich on Sony.

I do prefer the orginal version version of 1873. However, in the later 1889 version is the section where the carefree polka is heard over the serious chorale, especially noticeable is the Maazel's emphasis of the memorable, rather flirty staccato given to the polka passage; just one of many alterations from the original.

Not too long ago the Third was a work I pretty much dismissed.

[richardfinegold]

Well no, not bogged down, no - but it - Tom Service - can hardly avoid the issue can he? You seem pretty clued up on editions these days Beef, if you were in his position, wouldn't you try to make it more of an Interpretations on Record... ?

But sweeping past the question of editions for one or two "top recommendations" would seem to be living in the past, now, surely, given the many excellent, recent recordings of 1873 to add to all the previous recordings of revised editions. No intelligent reviewer can just rough-house it past all that - it is an essential, perhaps THE essential, aspect of this work's historical, recorded and performed existence.

I mean, ONE SINGLE recommendation for B3? I guess it might work as self-parody.......

***
I think it is a shame that some listeners, doubtless following Korstvedt, have become so readily dismissive of the work of Robert Haas (only controversial in the case of two symphonies, 2 and 8 - his work on the 1873 3rd, lost during the war except for a single set of uncorrected proofs, formed the basis of Nowak's 1977 publication). He was a faithful Brucknerian, careful and subtle in his (brief) emendations to versions of the 2nd and 8th symphonies, self-evidently tussling with the question of which revisions Bruckner had truly authorised and which were more the result of misguided influences from his friends and supportive musicians. Of course it would seem preferable to perform only the composer-authorised editions, now better authenticated and quite numerous enough. I would usually prefer this approach myself. But if Haas' work was really so irresponsibly licentious, why do so many thoughtful, sensitive Brucknerian conductors still use his editions today?
(It's worth mentioning too, that Nowak retained the passages Haas restored from 2/1872 in his edition of 2/1877. Carragan's editions of both would now appear to supersede those earlier efforts definitively.)

It's obvious. Haas politics were toxic, his language being the daily speak of the 3rd Reich. Bruckner according to him had been corrupted by 'cosmopolitan ' and Jewish influences. It is difficult for many to be objective about the work of such an odious character. At the remove of 80 years, it is easier to dissociate the work from the man

[BBMmk2]

I've heard a few \Bruckner 3's recently, on Spotify Premium. The one's I have heard are Simone Young, Riccardo Chailly, and Yannick Nezet-Sequin. Of these three, I preferred Riccardo Chailly. Simply because, although the other two, yes very good, Chailly's flowed better, and the recorded sound from Decca was first class.

[Barbirollians]

The thrilling Halle /Barbirolli mono account of the 1889 ( thrilling and Bruckner 3 not being words usually to be found in the same sentence ) has been deleted even as a download - indeed all the Bruckner Barbirolli recordings on BBC Legends have disappeared - snap up copies of his 3,7,9 and especially 8 .

[Beef Oven!]

Have we overlooked the European Philharmonic - Peter Jan Marthé recording?

Bump!

[seabright]

For what it's worth, and because it doesn't seem to have been mentioned here, I have a 1968 'Concert Hall' LP with Maazel and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. W. A. Chislett's notes say that it's "the final version, as edited by Leopold Nowak." I haven't played it in years but I seem to recall it was well worth being retained on the LP shelf. Doubtless "nla" in any case.

[BBMmk2]

For what it's worth, and because it doesn't seem to have been mentioned here, I have a 1968 'Concert Hall' LP with Maazel and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. W. A. Chislett's notes say that it's "the final version, as edited by Leopold Nowak." I haven't played it in years but I seem to recall it was well worth being retained on the LP shelf. Doubtless "nla" in any case.

W A Chislett? Goodness, that's going back a few years!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Is it on a Friday ?

"Well done, Wilson. I wondered who'd be the first to spot that."

[ahinton]

Bump!

Maybe there's a reason for members' silence on this one and, whilst I've not actually heard it, if it's anything like the excrescence that is the overblown and unBrucknerian version of the finale of the Ninth Symphony that I have heard and which he bizarrely describes as "Bruckner reloaded" - as though the composer, despite dedicating his final offering to his beloved God, was some kind of firearm - such silence might well be thought to be golden...

[Beef Oven!]

Maybe there's a reason for members' silence on this one and, whilst I've not actually heard it, if it's anything like the excrescence that is the overblown and unBrucknerian version of the finale of the Ninth Symphony that I have heard and which he bizarrely describes as "Bruckner reloaded" - as though the composer, despite dedicating his final offering to his beloved God, was some kind of firearm - such silence might well be thought to be golden...

Peter Jan Marthe's recording of Bruckner’s 3rd symphony has not been listed in this thread’s OP nor mentioned throughout, because you listened to a completely different piece of music and didn’t like it. Strange logic.

[jayne lee wilson]

Have we overlooked the European Philharmonic - Peter Jan Marthé recording?

Very much looking forward to this BaL. I just hope that it doesn’t get bogged down in version city.

In the first place I have no respect for Marthe's "approach". We don't need any conductor to make his or her own arrangement of any Bruckner symphony as we have now quite enough well-authenticated editions of Bruckner's own (and enough residual uncertainty in the reasons for them) to enjoy exploring - listening to them, thinking about them. Marthe's is just an extreme version of the mythical concept of Bruckner as a composer who didn't know what he wanted, or was some inveterate tinkering reviser, as if the genuine revisions he did make give licence to any later performer to do what they like. Imagine applying that to any other composer, conflating the two Schumann 4ths or Rachmaninov 4th Concerto versions, or combining the 3-movement and the 4-movement versions of Sibelius 5th.
I recall Pinnock or Payne saying of their chamber-scale Bruckner 2nd, Payne having made his own "version", that "we'll never really know..." etc., what Bruckner "really" wanted. Well of course we do know now, very clearly (2/1872 and 2/1877 both well-authenticated) and we shouldn't pretend otherwise. (***).

I sampled the Marthe 3rd (it's certainly not any one of Bruckner's) on Qobuz and was appalled by some of the things I heard, e.g.. the deafening, melodramatic drumroll accompanying the first part of the scherzo (capriciously placed second); Marthe's conducting is plodding, his phrasing stodgy, and the sound he produces from his orchestra terribly overblown and bombastic. It really does sound like look-at-me directorial self-advertisement. I can see it may have an entertainment value for anyone familiar with the true symphony, in following what Marthe does with its ideas. But personally I wouldn't waste much time on it.

(***) As noted above, I think it's disproportionate to find a source or a culpability for these irresponsibly individualised versions in Haas (or any other editor who tried to find subtle, restrained solutions to historically complex problems which we now have a clearer view of). Just as one may forgive earlier conductors such as Karajan for making similarly subtle restorations or choices between editions, at a time when several of the original versions were little known or unpublished, and the authenticity of various revisions seemingly uncertain.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It really does sound like look-at-me directorial self-advertisement.

I agree that this approach can be be extremely annoying, but it can come about in a number of very different ways.

[ahinton]

Peter Jan Marthe's recording of Bruckner’s 3rd symphony has not been listed in this thread’s OP nor mentioned throughout, because you listened to a completely different piece of music and didn’t like it. Strange logic.

Sorry, I don't get that. I clarified that I'd not listened to this but referred to something else that PJM has done to Bruckner as an illustration; I did not suggest that this is why no one else has responded to reference to it but merely wondered whether that might be the case. It would be up to people to say if it is indeed so.