BaL 1st October 2011 - Bruckner's 8th Symphony

[Tony Halstead]

"BBC legends Barbirolli"
Lovely, noble performance apart from the sickly wobbly vibrato-laden Wagner Tubas..

[Petrushka]

Don't underestimate the live Haitink/Dresden Staatskapelle in this piece! It is, for me, the best of his four recordings of the 8th and would be there with the VPO/Karajan if I could choose two.

[Chris Newman]

The two favourite live performances I have attended were Jascha Horenstein and the LSO in 1970 which waldhorn has already reminded us came out on a BBC 'Legends' CD. He made Previn's sleek outfit really sound central European that night. As if that performance is not enough, there on the same recording is a performance of the Ninth with the BBCSO that is even more electric. That Bruckner Eight with Jascha was very, very special and is a fine disc as well. The other great experience for me was Carlo Maria Giulini in Salisbury Cathedral with the Philharmonia. He recorded it the next day.

I enjoyed Sir Reggie Goodall's Prom very much in the flesh too but that BBC Legends recording does not reveal a performance one wants to live with on CD.

I love both the Horenstein and Giulini recordings. I also am very fond of Jochum and the Dresdener Staaskapelle which for me (and I imagine most of us) was our introduction to this symphony. I am awaiting delivery in October of a new EMI box set of symphonies 3 to 9 with Celibidache and his Munich band which should be interesting. My old Gramophone Guide says I should either love it or hate it. I am optimistic: my experience with Celi is usually love.

[gurnemanz]

I enjoyed Sir Reggie Goodall's Prom very much in the flesh too but that BBC Legends recording does not reveal a performance one wants to live with on CD.

Around about the same time (70's) I heard it for the first time live. It was at the Proms with Zubin Mehta and the LA Philharmonic. I did not know the work that well at the time but remember being riveted, despite it being a long stand in the arena. I have three quite disparate CD recordings, all well worth a listen:

Furtwängler BPO (1949) from the recent RIAS Berlin Box
Karajan BPO
Boulez VPO

[makropulos]

Don't underestimate the live Haitink/Dresden Staatskapelle in this piece! It is, for me, the best of his four recordings of the 8th and would be there with the VPO/Karajan if I could choose two.

Totally with you about Haitink's Dresden version - it knocked me out when I first heard it. My other favourites are Jochum live in Japan (Bamberg SO), Matacic (NHK, 1984) and Giulini/VPO.
Like Caliban, I've never quite warmed to the VPO/HvK - though self-evidently it's a formidable performance.

[Petrushka]

The very greatest recordings of Bruckner 8 seem to be those set down in the conductor's old age when the wisdom of decades of struggling with works like this finally falls into place. So it is with Karajan and so it is with Haitink. Giulini and Wand, too. I am astonished to find that I have 30 versions on my groaning shelves and from them my shortlist would be VPO/Karajan, VPO/Giulini and Dresden Staatskapelle/Haitink.

[Nick Armstrong]

I am astonished to find that I have 30 versions

I join you in your astonishment and chuck in some open-mouthed amazement of my own....!! Thirty versions!

[Nick Armstrong]

PS:

[jayne lee wilson]

Last year I bought the remarkable Rozhdestvensky Complete Bruckner Symphonies from HMV Japan, on the Russian Venezia label. In two BIG boxes it has every version of every symphony except the 1887 8th. I later found that John F. Berky at abruckner.com had sourced an "1887 Rozh B8" from Radio Mayak, Moscow, performed 10/03/2009 in the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory with the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra, so I wrote to him and he offered it to me separately if I made a donation to his estimable enterprise. It's an extraordinary, visionary reading of the original version (ed. Nowak of course), taking 95'25" overall! If you buy the complete set from Berky, he includes this one for free. Haven't checked recent availability, but the whole set is an incredible experience for devoted Brucknerians, true to the spirit of the studious and humble St.Florian Master but Russian enough and different(!!) enough to be a very fresh experience too.

Of other 1887 8ths, what do you all think? I prefer the mercurial, rather quick & urgent reading from Inbal/Frankfurt RSO (lovely Alter Oper acoustic) to the vast meditation upon last things performed by Tintner. But the Rozh one is sui generis!

Schuricht's 1890 version is a huge favourite of mine too, I have the EMI-Toshiba (Yoshio Okazaki again!) remaster with the original(?) LP cover art of Friedrich's The Lonely Tree. Fairly leaps out of the speakers!

[makropulos]

Of other 1887 8ths, what do you all think? I prefer the mercurial, rather quick & urgent reading from Inbal/Frankfurt RSO (lovely Alter Oper acoustic) to the vast meditation upon last things performed by Tintner. But the Rozh one is sui generis!

Very much agree re Inbal - I like that performance a lot (and his 1st versions of the 3 and 4 too). I've never really got Tintner's Bruckner. All very devoted, but it never seems to fire me up. Perhaps that's my loss. Now the GRozh set does sound fascinating, though he's such a quirky devil you just never know whether things are going to be any good - he's one of the few people to have recorded a hideously uneven Glazunov cycle... Anyhow, the Bruckner set sounds exciting - and thanks for mentioning it!

[BBMmk2]

What agargantuan work! There are quite a lot of mysteries I find, when I am oistening to this great work. Could this be the greatest work of that time?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Could this be the greatest work of that time?

c1884 - 90? I would be tempted to give it my vote, Bbm; my hand stayed only by Brahms' 4th and a handful of his chamber Music (such as the glorious 2nd Violin Sonata, discussed on another thread).

Sorely tempted, though ...

Best Wishes.


(Anyone going to nominate The Mikado? )

[amateur51]

Totally with you about Haitink's Dresden version - it knocked me out when I first heard it. My other favourites are Jochum live in Japan (Bamberg SO), Matacic (NHK, 1984) and Giulini/VPO.
Like Caliban, I've never quite warmed to the VPO/HvK - though self-evidently it's a formidable performance.

Gary Oldman, I mean Eugen Jochum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0W3iCLa4YA&feature=related

Von Matacic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aAduugHz7A&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLDA63DE76B3C8C0AE

[Barbirollians]

RO did in the past give very high marks to that late Karajan but whether it is a " library " choice I suppose is another matter .

Glad to see he is back on Radio 3 a bit more often nowadays though.

[silvestrione]

I agree, great to see RO doing a second BAL, and an ideal choice of work to hear him on.