BaL 24.12.22 - Beethoven: Symphony no. 9 in D minor

[Ein Heldenleben]

Mozart and Chopin were both heavily influenced by the voice in their instrumental music.
Beethoven was simply the first to include actual voices in a Symphony. Technically, wouldn’t Mendelssohn have been the second?

What I was trying to say (and my efforts were undermined by my outrage at Serbia’s underhand tactics last night ) was that Beethoven pushed the limits of instrumental symphonic expression in the first three movements and must have thought there was no were else to go.
It’s interesting that Wagner realised this and went down the music drama route. I’m not writing off the nineteenth century symphony. But isn’t it interesting that Bruckner and Brahms , both extraordinarily talented musicians, struggled with the form . Look at Brahms’ rewrites of the first piano concerto , the length of time be took to write the first. The 9th stood like a monument challenging all other creative artists.It even became a bit of a curse …
Each of these geniuses devised their own solutions and for Mahler it was at least partly the use of song and human voice.

[jayne lee wilson]

Bruckner didn't "struggle with the form" - he reinvented it......(in such an original way, he still seems to baffle some listeners; his symphonic structures (usually based, in the outer movements, on three-subject sonata) still seem to elude listeners.

Where, in any case, are "the limits to instrumental symphonic expression"? What about late Mahler, Nielsen's 4th and 5th, or the developmental course of the Symphony in the 20th Century? No, it didn't go away. New and wonderful creative minds kept finding new symphonic paths, whether on classical models or more organic, constantly developing variations.....(re. Schoenberg on Sibelius and DSCH: "they have the breath of symphonists...").

*****

Of all symphonic masters surely it is Bruckner who learnt most from the Beethoven 9th. Not so much influenced as highly and very creatively inspired….

Those atmospheric openings, where very malleable musical ideas seem to form out of a vibrating, hovering sonic plasma; those extraordinarily fluid sonata-structures which follow, the constantly-varied cyclic references between the movements (Bruckner goes much further with this; but the LvB 9th is most explicitly referenced in Bruckner’s 5th, where all the main ideas are recalled at the start of the finale; the vast scale of that finale, the-clarity-within-complexity, though fugal rather than variational, also seem inspired by the Beethoven model. The transformative and integrative power of the coda to the LvB 9th (i) finds its greatest successors at the same point, in those of Bruckner. Not to mention those scherzi placed second….

Bruckner wrote three Masses, but all before the 2nd Symphony (though revised later); these are occasionally quoted in the symphonies, yet he never even conceived of a choral symphony; go figure…..

Brahms felt so oppressed by the 9th, that great Beethovenian shadow hanging over him, that he could only compose his own symphonies freely once he had faced up to the 9th in his own 1st, indeed (as Petrushka said) boldly and confidently (perhaps defiantly!) adumbrating its most famous theme into his own finale.

[smittims]

Oh, I think it's clear that Bruckner did 'struggle' with symphonic form. I think the recognised Bruckner authorities (e.g. Bob Simpson) demonstrate this. That is not to deny that he bacame a supreme master.

And surely, the influence of the Ninth was so vast and wide, so that it becomes of little use to try to find the man who learnt most from it. Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, Franck , Mahler, even Grieg, show signs of this, as do others.

[jayne lee wilson]

Oh, I think it's clear that Bruckner did 'struggle' with symphonic form. I think the recognised Bruckner authorities (e.g. Bob Simpson) demonstrate this. That is not to deny that he bacame a supreme master.

And surely, the influence of the Ninth was so vast and wide, so that it becomes of little use to try to find the man who learnt most from it. Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, Franck , Mahler, even Grieg, show signs of this, as do others.

Please can you be more specific about where you perceive these "struggles", within the structures of the music itself or his creative achievements? Is not the 1st Symphony a marvellously bold, supremely confident creation? So complete-in-itself, after which he has the freedom to be very adventurous....

Thinking about Brucknerian forms and his creative development has moved on from Simpson in crucial aspects: see Dermot Gault's The New Bruckner, Carragan's recent Eleven Symphonies "Red Book", and the excellent tireless Korstvedt's many notes to CDs and other articles (e.g in The Cambridge Bruckner Companion) not to mention his various new editions of the symphonies.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Bruckner didn't "struggle with the form" - he reinvented it......(in such an original way, he still seems to baffle some listeners; his symphonic structures (usually based, in the outer movements, on three-subject sonata) still seem to elude listeners.

Where, in any case, are "the limits to instrumental symphonic expression"? What about late Mahler, Nielsen's 4th and 5th, or the developmental course of the Symphony in the 20th Century? No, it didn't go away. New and wonderful creative minds kept finding new symphonic paths, whether on classical models or more organic, constantly developing variations.....(re. Schoenberg on Sibelius and DSCH: "they have the breath of symphonists...").

*****

Of all symphonic masters surely it is Bruckner who learnt most from the Beethoven 9th. Not so much influenced as highly and very creatively inspired….

Those atmospheric openings, where very malleable musical ideas seem to form out of a vibrating, hovering sonic plasma; those extraordinarily fluid sonata-structures which follow, the constantly-varied cyclic references between the movements (Bruckner goes much further with this; but the LvB 9th is most explicitly referenced in Bruckner’s 5th, where all the main ideas are recalled at the start of the finale; the vast scale of that finale, the-clarity-within-complexity, though fugal rather than variational, also seem inspired by the Beethoven model. The transformative and integrative power of the coda to the LvB 9th (i) finds its greatest successors at the same point, in those of Bruckner. Not to mention those scherzi placed second….

Bruckner wrote three Masses, but all before the 2nd Symphony (though revised later); these are occasionally quoted in the symphonies, yet he never even conceived of a choral symphony; go figure…..

Brahms felt so oppressed by the 9th, that great Beethovenian shadow hanging over him, that he could only compose his own symphonies freely once he had faced up to the 9th in his own 1st, indeed (as Petrushka said) adumbrating its most famous theme into his own finale.

I think Beethoven pushed to the limits of what was orchestrally and musically possible at the time perhaps even far beyond it. Bruckner had better musicians , better instruments indeed new instruments to integrate. He also had Liszt and Wagner as trail blazers who pretty much avoided the conventional 4 movt symphony yet were clearly firmly in the German symphonic tradition . Bruckner clearly struggled with the symphonic form - but then so did Beethoven to a certain extent . That’s what happens when you are pushing your art to the limits.

[jayne lee wilson]

I think Beethoven pushed to the limits of what was orchestrally and musically possible at the time perhaps even far beyond it. Bruckner had better musicians , better instruments indeed new instruments to integrate. He also had Liszt and Wagner as trail blazers who pretty much avoided the conventional 4 movt symphony yet were clearly firmly in the German symphonic tradition . Bruckner clearly struggled with the symphonic form - but then so did Beethoven to a certain extent . That’s what happens when you are pushing your art to the limits.

Well, I would still like to hear more specifically about Bruckner's "struggles", within the music itself; not to mention Beethoven's own "struggles" with his own 9th's finale.....

I don't think Bruckner took much, symphonically (or even musically), from Liszt or Wagner (both rather anti-symphonic composers anyway, pace Liszt's interest in and use of one-movement forms; the Wagner influence does not go much further than orchestration, but even there Bruckner soon establishes his own sound(s)).
Schubert was a far more important predecessor, and Bruckner's use of chorales within symphonic structures go back to much earlier musical traditions. His use of these to establish various harmonic plateaux, which then battle for the control and direction of his symphonies, is very and characteristically innovative. (Simpson is very good on this aspect).

[richardfinegold]

Hi, richardfinegold, I was intrigued by your reference to a Koussevitzky recording. I wonder if you are confusing it with the Missa Solemnis. I can't trace a Koussevitzky Ninth, but he did do the Mass on 78s (the first available recording I think) and Klemperer's Vox discs were also the Mass, his first commercial Ninth being his famous Philharmonia recording.

No, the Koussivetsky was definitely the 9th. I’ve never encountered this recording since. The Vox was Klemperer, from the early fifties, with one of those rag tag German Radio Orchestras of the day. My mother still had the lp until a few years ago when we had to downsize her stuff for a move

[Bryn]

No, the Koussivetsky was definitely the 9th. I’ve never encountered this recording since. The Vox was Klemperer, from the early fifties, with one of those rag tag German Radio Orchestras of the day. My mother still had the lp until a few years ago when we had to downsize her stuff for a move

Would this be the Koussivetsky in question?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQMU5cFgNAM

[Bryn]

Not quite there. The following discussion showed a distinct lack of awareness of the tempi Beethoven called for. Also, the first Brüggen was recorded after the JEG (the following month, indeed), not before it.

Oh, and let's not forget the 1988 Nimbus recording (Hanover Band et al, Goodman. That was my first 'HIPP' recording of the work, purchased as a used review copy a few days before its official release. Not one likely to be in the running but, at the time, far more of a revelation than JEG's, over four years later. I'm not one who balks at the Nimbus recording approach. Indeed, I wish that whole Hanover Band Beethoven series might be remastered in surround sound and released on a Blu-ray or two.

Hmm. Perhaps I could have a go at converting the UHJ stereo from the CDs to ambisonic B format with the help of http://www.angelofarina.it/Aurora/Ne..._and_Ambix.htm Not as good as might be achieved from the original Soundfield masters but maybe worth a try. Listening to the Goodman 9th again, I am reminded that it was the Adagio molto e cantabile which awoke me to the validity of Beethoven's metronome marking for this movement, and others. It really sings.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Well, I would still like to hear more specifically about Bruckner's "struggles", within the music itself; not to mention Beethoven's own "struggles" with his own 9th's finale.....

I don't think Bruckner took much, symphonically (or even musically), from Liszt or Wagner (both rather anti-symphonic composers anyway, pace Liszt's interest in and use of one-movement forms; the Wagner influence does not go much further than orchestration, but even there Bruckner soon establishes his own sound(s)).
Schubert was a far more important predecessor, and Bruckner's use of chorales within symphonic structures go back to much earlier musical traditions. His use of these to establish various harmonic plateaux, which then battle for the control and direction of his symphonies, is very and characteristically innovative. (Simpson is very good on this aspect).

Not so sure about that. All three used motive based cellular development extensively , very large tonal structures or in Liszts case highly compressed ones . I regard Wagner as absolutely in the German symphonic tradition. The problem with all this is you are pretty soon into question begging. Hans Keller defined a symphony as a large scale integration of contrasts. A satisfyingly vague concept which incorporates everything from the Liszt B Minor sonata to Gotterdamerung

[jayne lee wilson]

Not so sure about that. All three used motive based cellular development extensively , very large tonal structures or in Liszts case highly compressed ones . I regard Wagner as absolutely in the German symphonic tradition. The problem with all this is you are pretty soon into question begging. Hans Keller defined a symphony as a large scale integration of contrasts. A satisfyingly vague concept which incorporates everything from the Liszt B Minor sonata to Gotterdamerung

We should always begin and end with - listening...

After formative influence what matters is the work itself - what the composers built from their materials. Bruckner's completed Symphonies (in their various, now thankfully well-established, editions...) have little in common with Wagnerian or Lisztian procedures (or any other composer, really). Their very symphonic architecture (which anyone can try to follow point-to-point), formed from the earlier pre-classical models and the harmonic progressions, so crucially different in Bruckner, are often undiscussed on this forum. But see the brief reading list I mentioned above.

Listeners here could enjoy, and learn, much from those. The Cambridge Companion is a great collection to move on to if you're only familiar with say, Simpson. The Gault is far more detailed, but a revelation on many musical and biographical levels; the Carragan Red Book concentrates on the editorial variations (crucially - not remotely from any "ideal version" POV) but has very useful formal charts of the thematic shapes and structures as an appendix; excellent listening guides as-you-listen.

Have a go with these....great fun!

https://www.abruckner.com/down/articles/articlesenglish/carragantimed/symphonyno4/b4_timing_analysis.pdf

https://www.abruckner.com/articles/articlesenglish/carragantimed/

https://www.abruckner.com/down/articles/articlesenglish/carragantimed/symphonyno1/b1_timing_analysis_1866.pdf

****

What is a Symphony? is another question of course; an earlier discussion here led to the Great Roerhe concluding "anything a composer calls a symphony" . "Symphonic" might have a different application though...

[Ein Heldenleben]

We should always begin and end with - listening...

After formative influence what matters is the work itself - what the composers built from their materials. Bruckner's completed Symphonies (in their various, now thankfully well-established, editions...) have little in common with Wagnerian or Lisztian procedures (or any other composer, really). Their very symphonic architecture (which anyone can try to follow point-to-point), formed from the earlier pre-classical models and the harmonic progressions, so crucially different in Bruckner, are often undiscussed on this forum. But see the brief reading list I mentioned above.

Listeners here could enjoy, and learn, much from those. The Cambridge Companion is a great collection to move on to if you're only familiar with say, Simpson. The Gault is far more detailed, but a revelation on many musical and biographical levels; the Carragan Red Book concentrates on the editorial variations (crucially - not remotely from any "ideal version" POV) but has very useful formal charts of the thematic shapes and structures as an appendix; excellent listening guides as-you-listen.

Have a go with these....great fun!

https://www.abruckner.com/down/articles/articlesenglish/carragantimed/symphonyno4/b4_timing_analysis.pdf

https://www.abruckner.com/articles/articlesenglish/carragantimed/

https://www.abruckner.com/down/articles/articlesenglish/carragantimed/symphonyno1/b1_timing_analysis_1866.pdf

****

What is a Symphony? is another question of course; an earlier discussion here led to the Great Roerhe concluding "anything a composer calls a symphony" . "Symphonic" might have a different application though...

Yes I’ve read the Bruckner Companion . I also don’t want to over do the Bruckner “ debt” to Wagner trope and I don’t think I ever suggested one . I used the word “trail blazer” in respect of Wagner - not role model or mentor .But there is a relationship between the two , a common root - as the lengthy quote from the book below suggests . It’s from the harmony chapter . There’s also a very good essay on the critical history of the Bruckner / Wagner musical relationship at the end of the book. Previous critics , vastly more knowledge than me , were much keener on the Bruckner / Wagner parallels. The key thing is that are both part of a common tradition - the Austrian - German symphonic one and both had to contend musically with the challenges thrown up by the Ninth.

“Wagner
The most vexatious aspect of Bruckner’s style is its relationship to Wagner. As with several matters mentioned here, this goes beyond purely musical influence to raise issues that impinge on Bruckner’s personality and aesthetic. That the writing of symphonies ran counter to the picture of music history that Wagner held throughout much of his career is a truism; from a Bayreuth perspective it should have been as much a ‘heresy’ as Bruckner’s departure from the world of church music. 17
The analyst is left with the principal theory that Bruckner’s debt to Wagner was essentially in harmony. To consider this may involve reinterpretation of those passages that seem inflected by the archaic. In a particularly virtuosic article, Graham Phipps considered the idea of ‘church style’ in the first movement of the Seventh Symphony, noting that ‘modal characteristics’ could derive from certain tonal and harmonic traits in Wagner which were then cross-fertilized by specifically Brucknerian thematic material. The complete lack of adequate criteria to confirm that these traits are ‘quotations’ (why does Bruckner bury them in subordinate parts?) does not refute his argument as a whole.
18 The Brucknerian who despairs of saying anything truly meaningful or original about Bruckner’s debt to Wagner is confronted with the problem that there are so many different images of Wagner on which to draw; he is too protean for simple musical classification. To claim that Bruckner’s style clamps a four-square periodicity on ‘endless melody’ is to overlook those many passages in Wagner that follow similar strategies (the ‘Liebestod’ manages to be both ‘infinite’ and to grow from two-bar phrases). Comparison with one possible Wagner quotation in the 1873 version of the Third Symphony reveals certain striking differences, not so much in the use of chromaticism as in the way that Bruckner allows a greater degree of prolongation of diatonic moments (see Example 7.2). Although this evocation of the ‘Magic Sleep’ motif from Die Walküre (see Example 7.3) resembles its model in side-slipping chromaticism allied to third motion in the bass, there are much clearer diatonic landmarks such as the subdominant in bar 481, the return of the local tonic (F major) in bar 483, and the pedals on the dominants of F and D minor. Part of the relative stiffness of this passage (which may explain why Bruckner eventually cut it) comes from its strong sense of what is tonally appropriate at this point in a symphony. If Wagner is protean, Bruckner remains fairly circumscribed in his appreciation of how recapitulations are prepared. Later he grew much freer in his use of such chromatic resources without abandoning completely his faith in tonic and dominant pedals as means of anchoring chromaticism. The Scherzo of the Ninth derives much of its force from deployment of chromatic resources first without, then with, tonic pedal.”

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes I’ve read the Bruckner Companion . I also don’t want to over do the Bruckner “ debt” to Wagner trope and I don’t think I ever suggested one . I used the word “trail blazer” in respect of Wagner - not role model or mentor .But there is a relationship between the two , a common root - as the lengthy quote from the book below suggests . It’s from the harmony chapter . There’s also a very good essay on the critical history of the Bruckner / Wagner musical relationship at the end of the book. Previous critics , vastly more knowledge than me , were much keener on the Bruckner / Wagner parallels. The key thing is that are both part of a common tradition - the Austrian - German symphonic one and both had to contend musically with the challenges thrown up by the Ninth.

“Wagner
The most vexatious aspect of Bruckner’s style is its relationship to Wagner. As with several matters mentioned here, this goes beyond purely musical influence to raise issues that impinge on Bruckner’s personality and aesthetic. That the writing of symphonies ran counter to the picture of music history that Wagner held throughout much of his career is a truism; from a Bayreuth perspective it should have been as much a ‘heresy’ as Bruckner’s departure from the world of church music. 17

The analyst is left with the principal theory that Bruckner’s debt to Wagner was essentially in harmony. To consider this may involve reinterpretation of those passages that seem inflected by the archaic. In a particularly virtuosic article, Graham Phipps considered the idea of ‘church style’ in the first movement of the Seventh Symphony, noting that ‘modal characteristics’ could derive from certain tonal and harmonic traits in Wagner which were then cross-fertilized by specifically Brucknerian thematic material. The complete lack of adequate criteria to confirm that these traits are ‘quotations’ (why does Bruckner bury them in subordinate parts?) does not refute his argument as a whole.

18 The Brucknerian who despairs of saying anything truly meaningful or original about Bruckner’s debt to Wagner is confronted with the problem that there are so many different images of Wagner on which to draw; he is too protean for simple musical classification. To claim that Bruckner’s style clamps a four-square periodicity on ‘endless melody’ is to overlook those many passages in Wagner that follow similar strategies (the ‘Liebestod’ manages to be both ‘infinite’ and to grow from two-bar phrases). Comparison with one possible Wagner quotation in the 1873 version of the Third Symphony reveals certain striking differences, not so much in the use of chromaticism as in the way that Bruckner allows a greater degree of prolongation of diatonic moments (see Example 7.2).

Although this evocation of the ‘Magic Sleep’ motif from Die Walküre (see Example 7.3) resembles its model in side-slipping chromaticism allied to third motion in the bass, there are much clearer diatonic landmarks such as the subdominant in bar 481, the return of the local tonic (F major) in bar 483, and the pedals on the dominants of F and D minor. Part of the relative stiffness of this passage (which may explain why Bruckner eventually cut it) comes from its strong sense of what is tonally appropriate at this point in a symphony. If Wagner is protean, Bruckner remains fairly circumscribed in his appreciation of how recapitulations are prepared. Later he grew much freer in his use of such chromatic resources without abandoning completely his faith in tonic and dominant pedals as means of anchoring chromaticism. The Scherzo of the Ninth derives much of its force from deployment of chromatic resources first without, then with, tonic pedal.”

This detailed harmonic description is fair enough in itself, but again, the experience of listening to a Bruckner movement, the way it moves and develops, the way it breathes and lives, its emotional impact, is very different from hearing and experiencing the way Wagnerian leitmotivs move and transform in their own contexts.
I take issue with Williamson's description of Bruckner's recaps as "circumscribed". He's focussing on the harmony, yes, point taken, but the recaps in other symphonies are, structurally and thematically, vary varied in their lead-backs and often very exciting in their climaxes, and the codas even more so. A vital point in the actual listening.

I'm very fond of that passage in the 1873 3rd; for me, far from being "stiff" (again, a description drawn from focussing on the harmony, perhaps a little too exclusively, even if that is the brief), I love the way the symphonic flow (so much freer in this original 3rd) seems to wait, as time stands still for this contemplative moment; the sleep motif also grows naturally from the quietly atmospheric thematic development in winds and strings just before it; and is a beautifully apt preparation, thematically and emotionally, for the recap of the opening trumpet theme that follows.....

We can reflect on what has passed, what is to come; I think the revisions of the 3rd are the poorer without it (as with many other deleted passages...).

[Ein Heldenleben]

I agree that the “experience “ of listening to Wagner can be very different to that of Bruckner . But they share harmonic and tonal tropes - not to the point of imitation though. Theres a shared “massiveness “ to the tonal and orchestral landscape in say the opening of Die Walküre and the 9th symphony ( both Bruckner’s and Beethoven’s ) . All I’m saying is that Beethoven’s ninth threw up challenges for all subsequent symphonic composers. Both these genius’s responded in their own way but their harmonic and tonal language isn’t it that far apart really - with the possible exception of Tristan . That work was as revolutionary in its way as the Eroica.

[Alison]

Surely this edition is superfluous since a version has already been chosen for the library.