Bruckner 9; the four movement version

[Once Was 4]

"HS, was this in 1987 or '88 by any chance? "

No much earlier - finale in about 1976 (in the Milton Hall - Manchester - which was then the BBCNSO's studio) and the rest of the symphony in about 1973 or 1974 (in the Great Hall of Salford University).

I do have my old file of contracts somewhere if any body want s the precise dates.

HS Substitute

[BeethovensQuill]

Horribly out of place as I am in this wonderful scholarly discussion .....I have to say I find the Rattle recording a joy and return to it regularly. Maybe this is because before this I didn't really know B9 having, stupidly I suppose, ignored it as unfinished. To me the final movement "works" very well and this grey afternoon, breaking most of the rules in the FOR3 rule book, I listened to it as a bleeding chunk on headphones as I pushed my granddaughter through the muddy puddles. IMHO quite wonderful - thanks to all, especially , Roehre for the magical posts.

This is similar to me but i had listened to the 3 movement version a couple of times but not enough for it really to stick in the memory and then bought the Rattle recording and after about 3 listens the finale struck me as a great conclusion to the Symphony. The final 10mins for me is great Bruckner.

[jayne lee wilson]

I couldn't help thinking, after hearing the Rattle performance again, that a finale couldn't possibly continue in the same vein as i-iii; so much conflict is worked out and through in those movements; what could possibly follow? This may be why it has been found satisfying to so many listeners without a finale, especially if the Adagio's end is performed as, and known to be, the conclusion.
For me, the finale HAS to set off in a new direction. Did Bruckner see Death as indeed a release, the ascent to heaven and to God as - not just a profound fulfilment, but a great adventure? Or Death as the start of another more mysterious adventure? "Peace on Earth" at the end of the Adagio, and then...?

Those remarkable grinding harmonies in the finale (after 12'30 Rattle) sound like an intense struggle to get away, to move on - and the return of the 1st-movement-1st-climax theme near the end is anything but reassuring - the flow of the music stops dead.. This is NOT the way forward! Then the coda, especially in the latest SPMC text, really does achieve lift-off. This isn't a grandly synthesising finale, or a clearing of any conflicts left from i - iii. It sounds remarkably fresh, with a new rhythmical freedom and simplicity of ideas. Vitally contrasting with the structural complexities, and the intense emotional workings-out of i and iii or the devils-and-angels visions of the scherzo.

After all, Bruckner's finales are very distinct from one another; sometimes quite brusquely terminated as in 2 and 6, or grandly cyclical perorations in 4 and 5, 7 and 8. At this end-stage of his life, after a great battle with Faith, Doubt, and other ghostlier, nameless demons, you wouldn't really have expected anything familiar - would you?

Apart from the "familiarity problem" of the first three movements as against the finale, perhaps those who have difficulty with the most recent versions of the finale itself should try a little thought-experiment: what would you feel if the SPMC version was in fact Bruckner's autograph throughout, without any doubts about authenticity? And what character of finale would you have conceived of, if not this one?

"O Mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps! levons l'ancre.
Ce pays nous ennuie, O Mort! Appareillons!
Si le ciel et la mer est noir comme l'encre,
Nos coeurs que tu connais sont remplis de rayons!"

(O Death, old captain, it is time. Weigh anchor!
To sail beyond the doldrums of our days.
Though black as pitch the sea and sky, we hanker
For space; you know our hearts are full of rays)

BAUDELAIRE, LE VOYAGE, (free translation, Roy Campbell)

[ahinton]

I couldn't help thinking, after hearing the Rattle performance again, that a finale couldn't possibly continue in the same vein as i-iii; so much conflict is worked out and through in those movements; what could possibly follow? This may be why it has been found satisfying to so many listeners without a finale, especially if the Adagio's end is performed as, and known to be, the conclusion.
For me, the finale HAS to set off in a new direction. Did Bruckner see Death as indeed a release, the ascent to heaven and to God as - not just a profound fulfilment, but a great adventure? Or Death as the start of another more mysterious adventure? "Peace on Earth" at the end of the Adagio, and then...?

Those remarkable grinding harmonies in the finale (after 12'30 Rattle) sound like an intense struggle to get away, to move on - and the return of the 1st-movement-1st-climax theme near the end is anything but reassuring - the flow of the music stops dead.. This is NOT the way forward! Then the coda, especially in the latest SPMC text, really does achieve lift-off. This isn't a grandly synthesising finale, or a clearing of any conflicts left from i - iii. It sounds remarkably fresh, with a new rhythmical freedom and simplicity of ideas. Vitally contrasting with the structural complexities, and the intense emotional workings-out of i and iii or the devils-and-angels visions of the scherzo.

After all, Bruckner's finales are very distinct from one another; sometimes quite brusquely terminated as in 2 and 6, or grandly cyclical perorations in 4 and 5, 7 and 8. At this end-stage of his life, after a great battle with Faith, Doubt, and other ghostlier, nameless demons, you wouldn't really have expected anything familiar - would you?

Apart from the "familiarity problem" of the first three movements as against the finale, perhaps those who have difficulty with the most recent versions of the finale itself should try a little thought-experiment: what would you feel if the SPMC version was in fact Bruckner's autograph throughout, without any doubts about authenticity? And what character of finale would you have conceived of, if not this one?

"O Mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps! levons l'ancre.
Ce pays nous ennuie, O Mort! Appareillons!
Si le ciel et la mer est noir comme l'encre,
Nos coeurs que tu connais sont remplis de rayons!"

(O Death, old captain, it is time. Weigh anchor!
To sail beyond the doldrums of our days.
Though black as pitch the sea and sky, we hanker
For space; you know our hearts are full of rays)

BAUDELAIRE, LE VOYAGE, (free translation, Roy Campbell)

Who needs intelligent thinking and reasoning such as you provide here? Well, we surely all do! Once again, very many thanks, jlw!

[Petrushka]

Jayne, your eloquence is most persuasive! When I first heard the Rattle performance I tried very hard indeed to listen to it as a four movement work without preconceptions but it simply didn't work in my view. I'll give the finale another go with your words before me and see if it appears to be anything better than early Bruckner.

[Richard Barrett]

Did Bruckner see Death as indeed a release, the ascent to heaven and to God as - not just a profound fulfilment, but a great adventure? Or Death as the start of another more mysterious adventure? "Peace on Earth" at the end of the Adagio, and then...?

I think I grasp what you're saying, but does it really help to view the music in terms of such existential metaphors?

[Roehre]

...
Apart from the "familiarity problem" of the first three movements as against the finale, perhaps those who have difficulty with the most recent versions of the finale itself should try a little thought-experiment: what would you feel if the SPMC version was in fact Bruckner's autograph throughout, without any doubts about authenticity? And what character of finale would you have conceived of, if not this one?...

Excellent point .

[jayne lee wilson]

I think I grasp what you're saying, but does it really help to view the music in terms of such existential metaphors?

Well, almost ALL "Writing about Music" is metaphorical - isn't it? Never having mastered Kellerian Wordless Analysis, or any other form of musical analysis, all I have is language to give some (doubtless deeply imperfect) idea, of what a piece might, very provisionally, convey to me...

We know that Bruckner's faith was both profound and simple - i.e., a "given". But his music seems to suggest so much more; in the 8th and 9th Symphonies he's certainly struggling with... SOMETHING. Yes, you can just listen and keep quiet... or offer an image, or a concept, or two, about how it COMES ACROSS... which is why I use so many ???s....

I sometimes hear the 9th's finale as akin to Mahler's 10th in the Cooke Performing Version: contradicting the idea that either composer was simply "resigned unto death" in a last, great, all-encompassing adagio (oh, it would just HAVE to be a final tragic adagio, wouldn't it...) and reminding us that, as Valery said, "a poem is never finished, only abandoned". Or Geoffrey Hill's "Crying to the end, "I HAVE NOT FINISHED!" "

(So when you say "does it really HELP..." I'm not sure what I am supposed to be "helping"...)

[Richard Barrett]

We know that Bruckner's faith was both profound and simple - i.e., a "given".

That is the accepted and simplified picture of Bruckner, yes, the kind of person maybe who would prefer his own personality to disappear behind the vastness of his musical vision.

But his music seems to suggest so much more

- so maybe we don't actually "know" as much about Bruckner as the programme-note writers would have us think...

in the 8th and 9th Symphonies he's certainly struggling with... SOMETHING

- but in the end it's music, not autobiography, and this is the point I'm making (not for the first time) - it isn't about Bruckner, it's about your encounter with the music. Obviously writing about music is metaphorical, but your metaphors seem to have more to do with a perceived idea of the person behind the music.

[richardfinegold]

That is the accepted and simplified picture of Bruckner, yes, the kind of person maybe who would prefer his own personality to disappear behind the vastness of his musical vision.

- so maybe we don't actually "know" as much about Bruckner as the programme-note writers would have us think...

- but in the end it's music, not autobiography, and this is the point I'm making (not for the first time) - it isn't about Bruckner, it's about your encounter with the music. Obviously writing about music is metaphorical, but your metaphors seem to have more to do with a perceived idea of the person behind the music.

And so, Mr. Barret, now that you have had your go at criticizing jlw's interpretation--an interpretation which I find highly credible--what is your view of what the composer is trying to communicate? Are you saying that this is abstract music only, with no particular viewpoint? I would find that untenable. Bruckner idolized
Wagner and Wagner was the foremost champion ofthe notion that music should not represent abstractions, but rather, be about something.

[jayne lee wilson]

That is the accepted and simplified picture of Bruckner, yes, the kind of person maybe who would prefer his own personality to disappear behind the vastness of his musical vision.

- so maybe we don't actually "know" as much about Bruckner as the programme-note writers would have us think...

- but in the end it's music, not autobiography, and this is the point I'm making (not for the first time) - it isn't about Bruckner, it's about your encounter with the music. Obviously writing about music is metaphorical, but your metaphors seem to have more to do with a perceived idea of the person behind the music.

Absolutely, it's about my encounter with the music; and there's the continuous, habitual problem of assuming a godlike insight into Bruckner himself; but it's impossible to ignore, in the listening or its aftermath, all that I've read and heard of Bruckner (rather more from a books like Robert Simpson's study, or Stephen Johnson's "Bruckner Remembered" than programme notes...)

But again, that's why I use so many question marks; and maybe to go beyond them, more deeply into "my encounter with the music..." Maybe I haven't developed a vocabulary to do that (yet...)... my mention of Baudelaire's Le Voyage is a hesitant gesture in that direction. But I think you can't easily escape that culture of commentary, of Bruckner's music and the discussion of it; you can only work from within, and try to subvert the more obvious idees recus. Hence (musically) Venzago.

I might have done better to offer Baudelaire's conclusion.... (he's still addressing Death here)...

"Verse-nous ton poison pour qu'il nous reconforte!
Nous Voulons, tant ce feu nous brule le cerveau,
Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu'importe?
Au fond de l'inconnu pour trouver du NOUVEAU!"

[Sir Velo]

T - but in the end it's music, not autobiography, and this is the point I'm making (not for the first time) - it isn't about Bruckner, it's about your encounter with the music. Obviously writing about music is metaphorical, but your metaphors seem to have more to do with a perceived idea of the person behind the music.

Absolutely agree. It doesn't take a great stretch of the imagination to realise that a vast struggle is going on which alternates between moments of despair, violence, grandeur etc, but beyond that it is pure music. The biographical take, like the Liszt sonata's association with the Faust story, makes interesting reading, but does not help us to understand the music, nor should it.

[Sir Velo]

Or as a venerable old English fuddy duddy once wrote of his sixth symphony: "It never seems to occur to these people that a man might just want to write a piece of music!"

[Bryn]

Or as a venerable old English fuddy duddy once wrote of his sixth symphony: "It never seems to occur to these people that a man might just want to write a piece of music!"

Whoever said that was probably just paraphrasing RVW's "I suppose it never occurs to these people that a man might just want to write a piece of music."

[ahinton]

Part of the point here is, I think, that Bruckner did not actually set out deliberately to evoke this, that or the other extra-musical responses in listeners to his Ninth Symphony and there's no obvious evidence that he attached any kind of undeclared "programme" to it either, but that does not of itself mean that nothing beyond the disciplies of putting together its ideas and working it into a symphonic argument had any part in its composition; listeners will in any case have their own "encounters with the music" as well as recognising that others may have different ones to the same music. I don't therefore quite see Richard's and Jayne's sttements as necessarily incompatible or irreconcilable.