BaL 20.02.21 - Bruckner: Symphony no. 6

[richardfinegold]

I am not really advancing arguments, merely describing what is there in Bruckner's music. I have pointed out as clearly as I can how the climactic moments of the Bruckner 8(i) are arrived at....but you still don't respond. Can you hear the thematic derivations now?

On the subject of sonata-allegro, symphonic development and Brahms...

Most of Bruckner's first and last symphonic movements are based upon three-subject sonata forms, with very eventful developments and continuously evolving recapitulatory sections (where the material always appears in different shapes and new harmonic contexts) usually with a very extensive and exciting coda.
Very easy to describe or demonstrate, as various writers have commented before me. That is their classical formal background. I, Simpson, or Korstvedt are not imagining them, you are simply missing them. What he does against that background is, like all great art, profoundly original. But very sadly it seems I would be wasting my time describing further examples.

Not that Brahms ever followed any kind of conventional sonata-form himself in his symphonic works; like Bruckner, his mastery was so advanced he created new structures against such classical backgrounds in every piece. What form would you say the finale of the Brahms 1st is in? Any ideas? Like the astoundingly compressed, dazzlingly original Bruckner 7 finale, it creates its own harmonic and structural logic against those classical backgrounds. And travels far from them. Try following it....is there a repeat, d'you think? What happens at the nominal leadback/recap or in the coda?

Finally back to the Bruckner 6th. Can you describe what actually happens, in respect of the musical material and how it is treated, in the coda to the first movement? It is very characteristic of the transformations he often effects, apart from being of course, one of the most thrilling passages in all of his works...
(While we're about it - which other Bruckner Symphony is very explicitly quoted in the trio of the 6th?).

Regarding Brahms, to be sure he and all the Late Romantics could bend the rules (I’ve read excerpts forum Schoenberg Brahms The Progressive and would have taken an Adult Ed course this past Summer that featured it, another Covid Casualty) but one is aware that it is the conscious choice on an Artist who knew and mastered those rules and then is experimenting. With AB I never quite feel he managed the first part, and that was one reason that he attracted so many “helpers”.

[richardfinegold]

Gosh this thread has moved on a lot since earlier today. Just wanted to report that I did have a listen to Andreae in the slow movement of 6. To my shame his is not a name that meant anything to me, and he was clearly a conductor of real talent. But, although clearly the transfer has been sensitively done, and is certainly listenable, I would still prefer to listen to something better recorded, and it’s not as if we’re short of good modern versions. But, as Jayne mentioned, that Viennese oboe is something else, rather literally something from another millennium.

I’m afraid though - and I am a real Bruckner fan - that I do think he has a finale problem, simply that the movements just aren’t as good as what precedes them. (I crossed swords with Jayne about 4 a while ago on this issue.) I have listened to enough Bruckner to have a decent understanding of the three subject sonata form, but it just doesn’t seem to work (in general) as well in the finales as elsewhere.

Agree here with both the preference for modern sound and the finale issue. Regarding the former, I have not as yet explored any of the jlw recommendations re Andrea, and if I could try her patience by asking her to recommend just one, will attempt to remedy that. One of my favorite Bruckner recordings is Furtwangler 1944 Eight. However, Bruckner’s music cries out for modern sound. To hear Karajan’s Berlin SO in full cry on BluRay is not an experience soon forgotten and once enjoyed, a spoiler for all else
And the Finale issue is the root of my complaints, and those of generations of listeners. I agree with jlw that the 5th is the exception, and personally I would add the Sixth, nominally the subject of this thread. Elsewhere....It’s the major reason I don’t like hearing completions of the Ninth. It isn’t that Carragan , et. al., didn’t realize the intentions of the Composer, and therefore produced a a muddled mishmash that ruins the spell of the three movements that have gone before. It’s that I suspect that Carragan realized AB intentions only to well, and that the problem lay with the Composer

[jayne lee wilson]

Regarding Brahms, to be sure he and all the Late Romantics could bend the rules (I’ve read excerpts forum Schoenberg Brahms The Progressive and would have taken an Adult Ed course this past Summer that featured it, another Covid Casualty) but one is aware that it is the conscious choice on an Artist who knew and mastered those rules and then is experimenting. With AB I never quite feel he managed the first part, and that was one reason that he attracted so many “helpers”.

You're a friend Richard and a good one, so I hope you'll take a vigorous rebuttal from me again (for Bruckner's sake, not my own). What are these rules of which you speak? Which works did Brahms master them in, before bending them? I just don't think it works like that.
From his earliest works, the flowing expositions usually have several themes and motifs, often closely interrelated, but the finales are often far more unusual, often, like Bruckner, highly original structures in themselves. The concept of sonata or rondo may help you orientate yourself, but it could easily lead you astray if you cannot find the formal background (asking yourself "where is the second subject?") etc, and feel lost.
Best thing is: just follow the shapes that you hear...

Lost in Bruckner's enchanted forest? Find your way to the river and follow it....

Bruckner studied counterpoint for years with Sechter, a seemingly dry academic study. All that time on exercises?
But his profoundly creative and inventive mastery of that is one of the reasons his style so baffles so many listeners - they fail to hear the thematic relations; this layered complexity, and his very original take on sonata forms and the drama of tonal oppositions led his well-meaning friends to persuade him to simplify his symphonic structures - often quite damagingly.

***
You are falling into the very trap his contemporaries did (and many since, including earlier conductors like Mahler), in expecting him to follow some "formal rules". But with less excuse, with so many guides and books and recordings out there to help you. A course in Bruckner might be a better choice than one for Brahms (but more listening is always the better option...).
Just because the formal backgrounds can be easier to perceive in Brahms doesn't mean that they aren't there in Bruckner. He is ahead of his time and takes more effort, patience and repeated listening.
(I'm intrigued that you mention the 5th finale as your own exception; this follows no rules except its own, a vast edifice with only one precedent - the Beethoven 9th - as it contains and integrates several musical forms within its great cyclical span. You think Bruckner got it right here, but wrong almost everywhere else?).

You've made it clear, repeatedly, that you have not grasped the basic thematic integration of the Bruckner 8(i), so why keep promoting your own ignorance? This not about like/dislike, but observable, demonstrable musical developments. You keep criticising poor Bruckner from the point of view of bafflement. Where Brucknerian form is concerned you're becoming something of an empty vessel.

But I'm thinking this is just....heads, brick walls, lost causes.....
I'm going to feed the birds, then post on the excellent Dausgaard later.

[jayne lee wilson]

Back to Bergen PO/Dausgaard (BIS 2020), and what you notice immediately is the elegance and precision of the Bergen playing: everything is in its proper place.
Not that this precludes warmth in the strings, but it is less overtly expressive than Rattle. It can seem a shade cool initially, and may take a few hearings to acclimatise to the bracing fresh air, but one can’t but admire the clarity and blend of the orchestral response.

How lovely the adagio is here……lighter, leaner, more detached and classically poised compared to Rattle’s warm songfulness, but still beautifully done - a proper adagio, never rushed.
He is more “radical” overall, in the sense of lighter textures, minimal vibrato, eschewing overt grandeur or opulence; but that doesn’t mean a lack of power or excitement - far from it. The brass are splendid in this fine warm acoustic with this much-recorded orchestra.
In the quicker movements, his tempi are on a stricter leash than Rattle, but still with considerable variation to match the moodswings (and not missing the birdsong and pastorale in the scherzo & trio) especially in a fast but very coherent finale. My only reservation is here in the last movement, where the fast basic tempo creates a somewhat headlong impression, and the tempo relations can sound a little stiff or abrupt.
A “perfectly precise” feel to it, unlike Rattle’s endlessly flowing continuity. Yet the coda is still very exciting.

So a very transparent, light textured, somewhat neoclassical Bruckner here; but with great sensitivity and precision; structurally very clear, drawing you in more each time you listen to the excellent, warm and spacious SACD sound. A genuinely renewing reading which is also a good one to live with. A grower.

[vinteuil]

.

... in the box devoted to Bruckner's symphonies and masses in la discothèque idéale de Diapason, the choice for the sixth symphony is the performance with F Charles Adler and the Wiener Symphoniker from 1952, using the 1899 Hynais/Doblinger edition. Adler was a pupil of Felix Mottl at Munich, and an assistant to Mahler. Georges Zeisel, who chose this performance for Diapason, puts Adler's interpretation as being 'at the antipodes' of that of Furtwängler (the adagio of whose 1943 recording is also included).

Any views on the Adler recording?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Charles_Adler

.

[Bryn]

.

... in the box devoted to Bruckner's symphonies and masses in la discothèque idéale de Diapason, the choice for the sixth symphony is the performance with F Charles Adler and the Wiener Symphoniker from 1952, using the 1899 Hynais/Doblinger edition. Adler was a pupil of Felix Mottl at Munich, and an assistant to Mahler. Georges Zeisel, who chose this performance for Diapason, puts Adler's interpretation as being 'at the antipodes' of that of Furtwängler (the adagio of whose 1943 recording is also included).

Any views on the Adler recording?

I've not listened yet but was glad to find it avaialbe in lossless CD rate on QOBUZ, replete with booklet pdf. The CDs are still to be found on amazon.fr but what with the UK leaving the EU . . .

[richardfinegold]

You're a friend Richard and a good one, so I hope you'll take a vigorous rebuttal from me again (for Bruckner's sake, not my own). What are these rules of which you speak? Which works did Brahms master them in, before bending them? I just don't think it works like that.
From his earliest works, the flowing expositions usually have several themes and motifs, often closely interrelated, but the finales are often far more unusual, often, like Bruckner, highly original structures in themselves. The concept of sonata or rondo may help you orientate yourself, but it could easily lead you astray if you cannot find the formal background (asking yourself "where is the second subject?") etc, and feel lost.
Best thing is: just follow the shapes that you hear...

Lost in Bruckner's enchanted forest? Find your way to the river and follow it....

Bruckner studied counterpoint for years with Sechter, a seemingly dry academic study. All that time on exercises?
But his profoundly creative and inventive mastery of that is one of the reasons his style so baffles so many listeners - they fail to hear the thematic relations; this layered complexity, and his very original take on sonata forms and the drama of tonal oppositions led his well-meaning friends to persuade him to simplify his symphonic structures - often quite damagingly.

***
You are falling into the very trap his contemporaries did (and many since, including earlier conductors like Mahler), in expecting him to follow some "formal rules". But with less excuse, with so many guides and books and recordings out there to help you. A course in Bruckner might be a better choice than one for Brahms (but more listening is always the better option...).
Just because the formal backgrounds can be easier to perceive in Brahms doesn't mean that they aren't there in Bruckner. He is ahead of his time and takes more effort, patience and repeated listening.
(I'm intrigued that you mention the 5th finale as your own exception; this follows no rules except its own, a vast edifice with only one precedent - the Beethoven 9th - as it contains and integrates several musical forms within its great span. You think Bruckner got it right here, but wrong almost everywhere else?).

You've made it clear, repeatedly, that you have not grasped the basic thematic integration of the Bruckner 8(i), so why keep promoting your own ignorance? This not about like/dislike, but observable, demonstrable musical developments. You keep criticising poor Bruckner from the point of view of bafflement. Where Brucknerian form is concerned you're becoming something of an empty vessel.

But I'm thinking this is just....heads, brick walls, lost causes.....
I'm going to feed the birds, then post on the excellent Dausgaard later.

Bruckner's attempts at creating coherent finales remind me of Beethoven wrestling with the criticisms that he couldn't write a decent fugue. In LvB the result was some truly astonishing music.
And clearly Bruckner has his admirers who think he accomplished something wonderful in his finales. However, as your entry notes, down through the years he has had some pretty significant detractors. If I'm being lumped in with Gustav Mahler, I guess that isn't so bad
I cite the finale of V as an exception to his inability to write coherent finales because in 5, he clearly is attempting to do something different, and he succeeded. Would that that impulse have followed him in 7-9...
Bruckner may have studied counterpoint forever, and he clearly attempted ambitious things. Did he realize them? Why has he had so many "helpers" through the years, if he had? Can you imagine the likes of Haas correcting Beethoven?
And this is my parting shot (dim the applause, please): Do you, and Bryn, and others, really enjoy--really look forward-- to hearing Bruckner's finales? After the exaltation of the first three movements of the Ninth, do you settle in, rub your hands, and think "Oh boy, now the good stuff is coming?" If so, then there is no further point...lost causes indeed

[jayne lee wilson]

.

... in the box devoted to Bruckner's symphonies and masses in la discothèque idéale de Diapason, the choice for the sixth symphony is the performance with F Charles Adler and the Wiener Symphoniker from 1952, using the 1899 Hynais/Doblinger edition. Adler was a pupil of Felix Mottl at Munich, and an assistant to Mahler. Georges Zeisel, who chose this performance for Diapason, puts Adler's interpretation as being 'at the antipodes' of that of Furtwängler (the adagio of whose 1943 recording is also included).

Any views on the Adler recording?

.

Charles Adler's Bruckner Symphonies, including the 6th, are gathered here in a Music & Arts 2014 edition -

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/f-charles-adler-conducts-bruckner/0017685128325

...with remarkably extensive notes on the performances and how they were restored (LP/Tape sources), from Bruckner devotee Aaron Z Snyder again (who did the Andreae). Adler in fact adds some retouchings of his own to the Hynais/Schalk 6th (an ORF recording), detailed here.

On past experience the M&A sound should be as good as anyone can make it (the 6th is from a broadcast so may be more compromised...) - I'll try this later....thanks for the highlighting, it will be fascinating to hear Andreae's orchestra in other hands. No wonder they knew their Bruckner so well.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Bruckner's attempts at creating coherent finales remind me of Beethoven wrestling with the criticisms that he couldn't write a decent fugue. In LvB the result was some truly astonishing music.
And clearly Bruckner has his admirers who think he accomplished something wonderful in his finales. However, as your entry notes, down through the years he has had some pretty significant detractors. If I'm being lumped in with Gustav Mahler, I guess that isn't so bad
I cite the finale of V as an exception to his inability to write coherent finales because in 5, he clearly is attempting to do something different, and he succeeded. Would that that impulse have followed him in 7-9...
Bruckner may have studied counterpoint forever, and he clearly attempted ambitious things. Did he realize them? Why has he had so many "helpers" through the years, if he had? Can you imagine the likes of Haas correcting Beethoven?
And this is my parting shot (dim the applause, please): Do you, and Bryn, and others, really enjoy--really look forward-- to hearing Bruckner's finales? After the exaltation of the first three movements of the Ninth, do you settle in, rub your hands, and think "Oh boy, now the good stuff is coming?" If so, then there is no further point...lost causes indeed

Bruckner has had his detractors over the years. Tovey once notoriously said his counterpoint was that of a “village organist “ . To paraphrase Churchill you can only say “ some village , some organist .”

[Goon525]

Bruckner has had his detractors over the years. Tovey once notoriously said his counterpoint was that of a “village organist “ . To paraphrase Churchill you can only say “ some village , some organist .”

I suppose Leipzig is a little big to be considered a village?

[vinteuil]

I suppose Leipzig is a little big to be considered a village?

... don't know abt Leipzig - but when Bruckner was there his childhood place, Ansfelden, had a population of c. 2,200, and Sankt Florian 3,600.

(Which of course has no relevance here at all ... )




,

[jayne lee wilson]

Bruckner's attempts at creating coherent finales remind me of Beethoven wrestling with the criticisms that he couldn't write a decent fugue. In LvB the result was some truly astonishing music.
And clearly Bruckner has his admirers who think he accomplished something wonderful in his finales. However, as your entry notes, down through the years he has had some pretty significant detractors. If I'm being lumped in with Gustav Mahler, I guess that isn't so bad
I cite the finale of V as an exception to his inability to write coherent finales because in 5, he clearly is attempting to do something different, and he succeeded. Would that that impulse have followed him in 7-9...
Bruckner may have studied counterpoint forever, and he clearly attempted ambitious things. Did he realize them? Why has he had so many "helpers" through the years, if he had? Can you imagine the likes of Haas correcting Beethoven?
And this is my parting shot (dim the applause, please): Do you, and Bryn, and others, really enjoy--really look forward-- to hearing Bruckner's finales? After the exaltation of the first three movements of the Ninth, do you settle in, rub your hands, and think "Oh boy, now the good stuff is coming?" If so, then there is no further point...lost causes indeed

Last words upon last words.....

You rather self-servingly overlook Bruckner's many notable (!) admirers, scholars, editors and (so many!) conductors among them. Why did they all undertake such labours of love, over so many decades, to restore or record original and autograph editions, free of the damaging influences and cuts by those "friends" of his you align yourself with? You only have the recordings to listen to because of them - not because of Schalk or Mahler (all of the latter's cuts to 4 and 6 are crude and best forgotten). Ever heard the Schalk edition of No.5? Even you might get a shock from the butchered finale (Far worse than the 1890 3rd).

Your understanding is terribly imperfect about Haas. He did not correct Bruckner, he was the first to attempt the restoration of the original scores, and any interventionist decisions he made (sometimes restoring earlier passages to later editions) have since been corrected by Nowak and Carragan. So you are talking through your hat on this one.
It is entirely down to these scholars that you have the recordings on your shelves, to listen to, in all the editions, in their carefully edited and documented form.

I was thrilled to tears by both the 5th and 6th finales just last night (see the Listening thread)....
Oh Richard, of course I love them! Why would I defend them so passionately otherwise? It begins and ends with Love!

Of course I look forward to them, have done ever since those first glorious discoveries in my teens...Klemps 5th was one of the first LPs I ever bought, after hearing a poor-sounding broadcast. Then the Solti 7th and the Klemps 9th. I had Bruckner records from the library on endless renewal. The Haitink 1 bowled me over - especially the finale!
A huge advantage this gave me was that I learnt them by ear with my teenage, musically-untrained memory at its sharpest, so I can now think through them by memory, and hear how all the motivic and structural relations play out.

So my understanding feels instinctive and undoubted. The music is there before me, on my inner Qobuz to stream at will.
But with oh how many devoted supporters who feel the same - musicians, critics, scholars and musiclovers alike, over how many years!

[Goon525]

Does your inner Qobuz stream at 16/44, or can you summon up some virtual hi res?

[jayne lee wilson]

Does your inner Qobuz stream at 16/44, or can you summon up some virtual hi res?

I never found a way of measuring that one!

[jayne lee wilson]

The M&A VSO/Adler (1952) on Qobuz lossless is very well remastered, as I'd expect from this source.. Excellent room filling sound for the date, as per the Andreae set.

Very different from Andreae in most musical respects, generally weightier with a heavier tread, in the maestoso Adler is a little too keen to keep the rhythm audible, resulting in an occasional stamping over-emphasis upon the 2+3 which, with the moderate basic tempi, inhibits the flow to some extent. The brass are very grand and full; gesansgperioden are much slower and Romantically phrased, and Adler lingers over quieter, evocative wind and horn passages more than Andreae. Some textual surprises here: after the magnificent climax in the coda, the codetta actually begins quietly! Then crescendoes up to the conclusion. This rather dilutes the effect of the climax itself.
Probably a Schalkism in its musical predictability, which I found very unconvincing. Alright then - just a travesty really!

That lovely Vienna oboe, and those strings, are there in the adagio again, which as you might expect after (i), is a very impassioned, deeply Romantic account beautifully sung out by the VSO strings; the climaxes here far heavier and richer than Andreae; I found them somewhat overbearing, not helped by a slightly congested sound. That said, the adagio's final pinnacle is nobly and memorably ascended; the great string descent in the coda heartfelt and very moving. Very impressive indeed!
We're closer to Karajan or Celi territory here, but crucially, in a more local, traditional, earthier sonic context. The adagio, all 17' of it, is I think the best of Adler's reading; I think, the movement his heart was closest to.

The scherzo swings nicely, warmly characterised with precise detailing, and the trio is beautifully done: affectionate and humorous with lovely, evocative horns, winds and those Vienna strings in full song. So devotedly, tenderly played, I encored it several times...
The finale is noticeably slower, more considered than the thrill-a-minute Andreae, with greater contrast between the lyrical subjects and the grandly sonorous climaxes, and wide-ranging rubato....again, really taking time over the gesangs..... a fascinating reading, which drew me in the more I heard it. I still want to go back to it again.
A pity though, that Adler effects such an emphatic slowing for the final bars (this heavy stressing of a rhythm seems to be an Achilles heel with him). Kna and Andreae sometimes do something similar, but it is very overdone and over-rhetoricised here. If I'm not mistaken there are extraneous changes to the timpani parts too, presumably added by Adler, Hynais or Schalk. It all adds up to a certain grandstanding impression, where Andreae is far more direct, idiomatic and convincing through the same passage.

****

Overall then, a very grand, broadly paced, very affectionate and evocative Romantic reading, suffering slightly from some plodding overstressed phrase and agogic cadential endings, in good sound which occasionally loses focus or clarity.
But a deeply considered Bruckner 6 full of interpretive interest throughout, with striking differences from the nearly contemporary Andreae with the same orchestra (and this orchestra, of this vintage, has an essential, in the-blood-Bruckner sound you don't get anywhere else).
It shows how divergent Bruckner interpretation could be, even so localised and so early.