BaL 20.02.21 - Bruckner: Symphony no. 6

[cloughie]

The remasters of the GROCS and the GAOCS were the same ART transfers, so AFAIK the later boxset bundles those together...

QOBUZ may not sound identical though, for various reasons.........

Googled GROCS and it came up with Catalan for Saffron! GAOCS is Global Academy of Cosmetic Surgery. So have the recordings you refer to a high price tag and have been given a face lift?
Meanwhile I’ll reach the Klemperer box from the shelf and have a listen!

[Goon525]

Not expressing a view on SACD, but it’s hard to believe that anything recorded in the Barbican can be ‘sonically exceptional’ - adequate for sure, but not much more. Having said that, I’d better actually listen to the Rattle to make sure I’m not talking nonsense! Last one I heard was BRSO/Haitink, excellent from all points of view.

I listened to LSO/Rattle this morning, and it does indeed sound very good, so thanks for the tip, Jayne. It’s probably as good a recording as can be got out of the Barbican acoustic. Ultimately I’d prefer something a bit more expansive for a Bruckner acoustic, but I really can’t complain about this. The performance is also excellent - Rattle (perhaps surprisingly, it doesn’t feel like his natural territory) has become a very good Bruckner conductor. His Berlin 9th, even if you ignore the fourth movement, is also a fine reading.

[jayne lee wilson]

Googled GROCS and it came up with Catalan for Saffron! GAOCS is Global Academy of Cosmetic Surgery. So have the recordings you refer to a high price tag and have been given a face lift?
Meanwhile I’ll reach the Klemperer box from the shelf and have a listen!

GROCS - Great Recordings of the Century - GAOCS - Great Artists of the Century (slate blue covers).... CDs, all excellent sound for Klemps, Amazon prices still OK...

[cloughie]

GROCS - Great Recordings of the Century - GAOCS - Great Artists of the Century (slate blue covers).... CDs, all excellent sound for Klemps, Amazon prices still OK...

[jayne lee wilson]

And now, back to the music!

Coming soon....! Dausgaard revisited.....!
PS.....I still think its great...

[Petrushka]

Combining two upcoming BaL's I'm about to play Stravinsky's Pulcinella and the Bruckner 6 both with the RCO/Chailly and neither heard for a good few years!

[jayne lee wilson]

More tips for voracious perusers......try Salzburg Mozarteum/Bolton or Métropolitain/YNS for another fresh, individual take on things...

[richardfinegold]

This will be an interesting one as, to this day, only one recording of this work seems to receive all-round acclaim (that’s Klemperer way back in ‘64). Karajan’s sight-reading (that’s what it sounds like) is the black spot on his integrale.

I like Blomstedt’s San Francisco recording, but I’m almost certainly wrong to do so.

I’ve listened to the Karajan twice now since reading this post, on Blu Ray. We all can have different reactions to recordings and performances, and I don’t want to jump down any ones throat, but I don’t understand the viewpoint here. Just listening to the precision of the playing, the terracing of the dynamics, and realize that a lot of time must have been put into the interpretation.
I do think Karajan seems to let the music flow without obvious gear shifting, but the Sixth is the Bruckner Symphony that imo requires the least intervention on the part of the conductor. And the sound of the Orchestra is a statement in and of itself. If AB had been able hear this recording, I’m sure he would have been pleased

[Wolfram]

I’ve listened to the Karajan twice now since reading this post, on Blu Ray. We all can have different reactions to recordings and performances, and I don’t want to jump down any ones throat, but I don’t understand the viewpoint here. Just listening to the precision of the playing, the terracing of the dynamics, and realize that a lot of time must have been put into the interpretation.
I do think Karajan seems to let the music flow without obvious gear shifting, but the Sixth is the Bruckner Symphony that imo requires the least intervention on the part of the conductor. And the sound of the Orchestra is a statement in and of itself. If AB had been able hear this recording, I’m sure he would have been pleased

I have to say I agree with Rfg here. I played the Karajan last night and liked it very much, but was reluctant to confess to this on this thread for fear of getting pelted with rotten eggs and tomatoes, and being run out of town. Once your ear becomes accustomed to usual DG orchestral balance for HvK, the so called Karajan soup - which doesn't bother me at all, you can hear it for what it is, a dedicated, finely crafted interpretation. The string playing is extremely fine, as you would expect, gleaming in the fortes one minute, then producing delightfully fine, precise rhymic detail in the pps in the next, and the sound the Berliners produce blazes like the interior of a baroque church. I like the Klemperer very much as well. Completely different of course, less concerned with beauty of sound, more about the rigour of the musical argument. But I like them both because they are complementary.

[jayne lee wilson]

If you love Karajan fine (the original Gramophone reviews of No.6 (11/80) are very careful, detailed and I'm afraid very lukewarm, often on technical grounds), but one reason I promote less familiar or historical recordings is to offer a context in which the well-trodden may be viewed more relativistically.

I lived with the DG Karajan set, my first compete one, for many years. I still love much of it, especially 1, 2 and 3 (he recorded these quite late, with a more spontaneous, fresher, keen response). Though a few of these Berlin Philharmonie 1970s/80s tapings have been bettered by various live issues.
I may try the Karajan again soon - haven't revisited in a while.

Most listeners do tend to stick with Wand, Haitink (in Vienna - sharper and fresher in Amsterdam), Karajan, Jochum etc., all more or less in the same tradition, more or less based on grandeur of sonority and a very steady pulse. But this was in fact a later interpretive habit that settled in through the classic stereo era of the 60s and 70s.
What a shame more here don't spend some time with the earliest recordings such as the 1953 Andreae cycle, to see that there is - always was - another way, deeply rooted in the Older Viennese tradition. Knappertsbusch is a marvellous, classic example of this too - editions notwithstanding - with an instinct, rooted back in the 19thC, for combining Schubertian Song and Wagnerian drama. Once heard, especially in live performances, it changes the way you hear Bruckner.

I keep struggling to describe the Andreae 6th - one the earliest and one of the finest, on record - it shoots from the hip, the drama is high, the response from the VSO is so instinctive (playing Bruckner as they've known it and heard it, through generations) in following him that it doesn't seem "interpreted" as such. It can be bitingly fast or sharply dynamic, or very warm, full and songful, going with each twist in the musical narrative.

As for so-called gear changes, there's a great deal of evidence (from letters and first published editions) that Bruckner did not always want a steady tempo through his symphonies. But this is not necessarily written in - he left it to the conductor, and was keen to remind them about it. So a wide rubato or tempo variation is absolutely as valid, if not more so, as a "steady-state" approach. I have come to strongly prefer it.

[Ein Heldenleben]

If you love Karajan fine (the original Gramophone reviews are very careful, detailed and I'm afraid very lukewarm, often on technical grounds), but one reason I promote less familiar or historical recordings is to offer a context in which the well-trodden may be viewed more relativistically.

I lived with the DG Karajan set, my first compete one, for many years. I still love much of it, especially 2 and 3.

Most listeners do tend to stick with Wand, Haitink (in Vienna - sharper and fresher in Amsterdam), Karajan, Jochum etc., all more or less in the same tradition, more or less based on grandeur of sonority and a very steady pulse. What a shame more here don't spend some time with the earliest recordings such as the 1953 Andreae cycle, to see that there is - always was - another way, deeply rooted in the Viennese tradition. Knappertsbusch is a marvellous, classic example of this too - editions notwithstanding - with an instinct, rooted back in the 19thC, for combining Schubertian Song and Wagnerian drama. Once heard, especially in live performances, it changes the way you hear Bruckner.

There's a great deal of evidence (from letters and first published editions) that Bruckner did not always want a steady tempo though his symphonies but that this not necessarily written in - he left it to the conductor. So a wide rubato or tempo variation is absolutely as valid as a "steady-state" approach.

Apart from anything else that tempo and pulse variation helps with the “it all sounds a bit repetitive to me “ criticism you hear of Bruckner . The two most damaging sentences you hear about AB , very often in the Radio 3 intros , are “cathedral of sound’ and ‘organ-like’ in texture . I’m not suggesting we take AB out of the church and put him in the dance hall but a bit of lightness of touch helps. Song is right ..but then taking the song led approach to most melodic line is right and AB is surely not an exception.

[Bryn]

Apart from anything else that tempo and pulse variation helps with the “it all sounds a bit repetitive to me “ criticism you hear of Bruckner . The two most damaging sentences you hear about AB , very often in the Radio 3 intros , are “cathedral of sound’ and ‘organ-like’ in texture . I’m not suggesting we take AB out of the church and put him in the dance hall but a bit of lightness of touch helps. Song is right ..but then taking the song led approach to most melodic line is right and AB is surely not an exception.

I find Lionel Rogg's organ transcroption of the 8th (on BIS) a good antidote to the 'organ-like' analogy. For me, it's not just basing it on the Haas 'pick and mix' edition which irks. It's the massive loss of orchestral timbres, which Bruckner crafted so well.

[Wolfram]

I think Karajan could actually better away from the BPO. I don't know, this is difficult, but his last, live recordings with the VPO seem to me to have a greater humanity, less self perhaps than the Berlin recordings. Having said that his first BPO 8th for EMI from 1958 is arguably his finest.

The DG Jochum set was the one I grew up with, and he pulls the tempo around as much as anyone, but after a time listening to them began to make me feel uneasy, such that I never replaced it on CD. That's despite it having what I remember as being quite a visionary 9th. Amongst older recordings I remember with affection van Beinum's 7th on Decca; and wore out the copy in my local library.

Somebody mentioned earlier, if I remember correctly, performances that try to remove the accumulations of time and bring up Bruckner's scores afresh. Well one conductor who tried to do just that, and whose attempts were very luke warmly received at the time, was Dohnanyi in Cleveland (6th nla I believe), but the 9th at least was a resounding success.

[verismissimo]

I've been comparing and contrasting the five 6ths I have to hand - Wand/Cologne (fastest), Davis/LSO (slowest), Barenboim/BPO, Tintner/NZSO and Haitink/Concertgebouw - and conclude that, for me, the Haitink from 1970 convinces most in all movements.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I find Lionel Rogg's organ transcroption of the 8th (on BIS) a good antidote to the 'organ-like' analogy. For me, it's not just basing it on the Haas 'pick and mix' edition which irks. It's the massive loss of orchestral timbres, which Bruckner crafted so well.

Exactly - he’s not the first name that leaps to mind as a timbre-Meister but he is a real sound craftsman ...the slow movt of 8 - really wondrous