BaL 19.03.22 - Bruckner: Symphony no. 9 in D minor

[Barbirollians]

Hope Barbs doesn't mind if I answer. Yes it is. Austrian Radio recording from July 25 1976.

Yes that's right

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphony-9-Anton-Bruckner/dp/B000025BIB/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2T9HG5XCSCJSI&keywords=Bruckner+9+Karajan&qid=1647861102&s=music&sprefix=bruckner+9+karajan+%2Cpopular%2C47&sr=1-5

[RichardB]

Getting back on the subject of putative completions, the most recent effort by Carragan can be found here: https://www.abruckner.com/downloads/...th/february18/

Thanks, that's very interesting, especially the account by Carragan on his latest tinkerings: adding a horn melody to a bare texture, adding four bars somewhere else, introducing a new rhythmical figure... this doesn't seem to me to be the work of someone who's convinced that Bruckner's sketch is essentially complete and just needs to be put in order and an ending added (I exaggerate of course). To me it underlines the very provisional nature of what Bruckner left behind. Bear in mind that the Trio of the Scherzo in this symphony existed in two completely discarded versions before he wrote the definitive one. This could easily be true of large parts or even the whole of the Finale.

[Bryn]

Thanks, that's very interesting, especially the account by Carragan on his latest tinkerings: adding a horn melody to a bare texture, adding four bars somewhere else, introducing a new rhythmical figure... this doesn't seem to me to be the work of someone who's convinced that Bruckner's sketch is essentially complete and just needs to be put in order and an ending added (I exaggerate of course). To me it underlines the very provisional nature of what Bruckner left behind. Bear in mind that the Trio of the Scherzo in this symphony existed in two completely discarded versions before he wrote the definitive one. This could easily be true of large parts or even the whole of the Finale.

Indeed, these are among the reasons I hold that the three 'competed' movements should also be considered as somewhat provisional, though probably far closer to what Bruckner might have ended up with, had he the time to finish his work on the 9th.

[ostuni]

That BBC Music Mag version with Klee was how I first got to know the work: the Liverpool Cathedral acoustic makes for a very special sound (similar, I'm sure, to the Wand Cologne Cathedral recordings, which I've only read about). No doubt the huge echo delays contributed to Klee's very spacious tempo for the 3rd movement: longer, even, than Giulini's. Klee's first movement is distinctly faster than Giulini's: it's this, for me, over spacious first movement which lets the Giulini down.

The second version I heard, in the early 90's, was my father's disc of the Walter, as on Mival's shortlist. I remember well being shocked by the close, unatmospheric recording (the polar opposite of Klee's), and later, terminally irritated by the sloppy playing. The flutes get totally out of time at the end of the 3rd movement (between W and X if you're interested) - and, even in the short extract played in Record Review, the oboe got a quaver ahead. I can’t think how it all got past the producer!

I see from my score's annotations that I’ve owned a dozen different versions; recently, I've streamed several others. And my favourite, for both the quality of the recording, and for that of the performance, is the recent Honeck/Pittsburgh one.

[Flay]

Just popping in to thank whoever it was on this board who some years ago alerted me to the Giulini Bruckner 9 being played on R3. I don't think I had ever listened properly to the 9th before that, but this recording has been a constant companion since.

Found it: 8th April 2009 @ 10.49am. https://radio-lists.org.uk/r3/2009/R...pt_39pages.pdf

[Barbirollians]

Can you imagine 70 minutes of Bruckner on essential classics ?

[Bryn]

Can you imagine 70 minutes of Bruckner on essential classics ?

Ah, the hallowed days of Classical Collection.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Can you imagine 70 minutes of Bruckner on essential classics ?

Imagine all that jabberfree time.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Sterling effort, again, EA. Is there, however, any chance of indicating which recordings include one of other of the several completions of the final movent? I know of the Yalmi, Rozhdestvensky, Widner, Bosch, Rattle and Schaller recordings but which others are there to be considered?

Sorry, Bryn. I missed this earlier. I did think about it when compiling the list, but didn’t have the knowledge or information about which recordings had completed finales.

[Bryn]

Sorry, Bryn. I missed this earlier. I did think about it when compiling the list, but didn’t have the knowledge or information about which recordings had completed finales.

Fair enough. Mival only made a passing reference, when it came to it, and only that used by Rattle.

[Barbirollians]

I assume people feel differently about the completion of Bruckner 9 than they do about say Cooke's completion of Mahler 10 because we have three completed movements rather than just one - or is that more " composing " rather than orchestration is needed for this finale compared to Mahler 10 which I understood was substantially complete in draft albeit not orchestrated - or maybe it isn't ?

[RichardB]

I assume people feel differently about the completion of Bruckner 9 than they do about say Cooke's completion of Mahler 10 because we have three completed movements rather than just one - or is that more " composing " rather than orchestration is needed for this finale compared to Mahler 10 which I understood was substantially complete in draft albeit not orchestrated - or maybe it isn't ?

That's a big and complicated question, which quite a few posts on this thread and on past threads have addressed in different ways, but the main reason I feel differently about the two is that the Bruckner 9 finales I've heard simply don't interest me very much as music - they just aren't on anything like the same musical level as the three movements preceding them, which isn't true of Mahler 10 (or, for example, of Lulu).

[Bryn]

That's a big and complicated question, which quite a few posts on this thread and on past threads have addressed in different ways, but the main reason I feel differently about the two is that the Bruckner 9 finales I've heard simply don't interest me very much as music - they just aren't on anything like the same musical level as the three movements preceding them, which isn't true of Mahler 10 (or, for example, of Lulu).

Fair comment, I would say. I approach them as vehicles for Bruckner's various sketches presented in some sort of musical association, with extemporised filling material. I find they also serve as a reminder that Bruckner did not intend the Symphony to end with the Adagio.

[jonfan]

The third movement seems the perfect Benediction to Bruckner’s life with the long drawn out ending. (I always pity the horns who have to sustain a perfect, quiet top B which seems to go on for ages). None of us know when the Grim Reaper may call and Bruckner didn’t either as he was working on the Finale the day he died with souvenir hunters taking sheets of sketches which were never seen again, surely ranking high in the cultural vandalism stakes. It’s fascinating to note Bruckner had orchestrated the first three movements for performance and only after that contemplated the Finale. How different is Elgar who had sketches and development ideas for all four movements of his Symphony No 3. He had new energy and confidence, so what a shame the GR interfered too soon again!
It’s good to hear four movement versions of Bruckner 9 no matter how inadequate as it shows he hadn’t had his last word. How differently we would view Beethoven’s Ninth if it stopped after the third movement!
Talking about premature life endings, there’s a nice story that Previn told regarding an Atlantic flight he was taking in the company of Barbirolli when they encounter very severe turbulence. ‘Oh no,’ said JB, ‘I can’t die yet, I haven’t conducted all Bruckner's symphonies.’

[RichardB]

How differently we would view Beethoven’s Ninth if it stopped after the third movement!

That's how I usually listen to it.