Bruckner 6

[Pianoman]

Currently listening to a very worthy Bruckner 6 from Horst Stein and the VPO, classic Decca sound from the early 70s, beautifully paced and I like his terracing of textures in the orchestration, always tricky to gauge in Bruckner.

[Beef Oven!]

Currently listening to a very worthy Bruckner 6 from Horst Stein and the VPO, classic Decca sound from the early 70s, beautifully paced and I like his terracing of textures in the orchestration, always tricky to gauge in Bruckner.

I'm so glad you posted this. I think Horst Stein is unsung and the VPO B6 is wonderful.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm so glad you posted this. I think Horst Stein is unsung and the VPO B6 is wonderful.

- I don't have a duff recording of the work in my collection (Karajan, Klemperer, Stein, Davies, Barenboim/BPO, Rozhdestvensky, Norrington). My favourite is the Norrington (that Finale - just right!), but, having played the Klemperer most recently - and after not hearing it for over ten years - I was reminded again just how wonderful a performance it is. The frequently-made comments about his mastery of a score's "architecture" is absolutely right: the pacing of the work, the relative degrees of power at climactic moments, the attention to orchestral detail - it's all magnificently presented. But the fire of the performance is astonishing, too: the intellectual passion I find miraculous.

And, for all the "Cinderella" reputation of the work (surely not the case nowadays?) it happens to be the Bruckner Symphony that I have heard most frequently in concert.

[Beef Oven!]

- I don't have a duff recording of the work in my collection (Karajan, Klemperer, Stein, Davies, Barenboim/BPO, Rozhdestvensky, Norrington). My favourite is the Norrington (that Finale - just right!), but, having played the Klemperer most recently - and after not hearing it for over ten years - I was reminded again just how wonderful a performance it is. The frequently-made comments about his mastery of a score's "architecture" is absolutely right: the pacing of the work, the relative degrees of power at climactic moments, the attention to orchestral detail - it's all magnificently presented. But the fire of the performance is astonishing, too: the intellectual passion I find miraculous.

And, for all the "Cinderella" reputation of the work (surely not the case nowadays?) it happens to be the Bruckner Symphony that I have heard most frequently in concert.

Well there I was saying that I didn't get all the fuss about Klemperer's B6 and last night I played it through and thought it was absolutely tremendous! I don't think I've listened to it in years. Maybe I was relying on old wonky listens. Anyway, it deserves its plaudits.

B6 as your most frequented B concert is most unusual! I can't even remember the time I attended a performance of it (but I know I have).

This morning I listened to the Solti that I downloaded. Haven't got my ears and head around it yet, but I will ask what the tympanist is hitting the drums with in the first movement. A sledgehammer springs to mind!

I'm saving the Sawallisch for tonight

[Alain Maréchal]

Well there I was saying that I didn't get all the fuss about Klemperer's B6 and last night I played it through and thought it was absolutely tremendous!

Something, thankfully, that Beef Oven and I agree about. Its the finale - just the right tempo and sense of inevitability. .

[Barbirollians]

Klemperer and Norrington here and both very fine I think .

[Richard Barrett]

2 minutes into a first listen to Norrington... so far so good!

edit - yes, that was very good indeed. Now for Karajan.

edit 2 - gosh, the strings and brass aren't always in quite the same place in the first movement...

[Petrushka]

Played the new Haitink again tonight and it was wonderful. Particularly struck again by the fantastical orchestration of the third movement - all sorts of bits and pieces swirling around underneath and behind the main melody.

Perhaps I should give Klemperer another try following comments above.

[Alison]

Played the new Haitink again tonight and it was wonderful. Particularly struck again by the fantastical orchestration of the third movement - all sorts of bits and pieces swirling around underneath and behind the main melody.

Perhaps I should give Klemperer another try following comments above.

[BBMmk2]

Klemperer and Norrington here and both very fine I think .

It's stranger but sometimes I just cannot connectwith Norrington. Must give him another go, methinks? I am glad that other members seem to be warming to the Haitink recording. it certainly made me sit up and think, I like this work, after all. That's after hearing such luminaries as Jochum for example.

[Barbirollians]

It's stranger but sometimes I just cannot connectwith Norrington. Must give him another go, methinks? I am glad that other members seem to be warming to the Haitink recording. it certainly made me sit up and think, I like this work, after all. That's after hearing such luminaries as Jochum for example.

Norrington is very hit and miss with me - hit Bruckner 6 Symphonie Fantastique and the some Beethoven symphonies . Miss that Mahler 9 , the Eroica and the late Mozart symphonies .

[Richard Barrett]

Michael Gielen gives a typically thoughtful and profound performance with ample attention to detail, one I'll be returning to no doubt. Interestingly, of course, the orchestras conducted by Gielen and Norrington have in the meantime been merged into a single one, with the Baden-Baden/Freiburg ensemble specialising more in 20th and 21st century music, and highly trained by Gielen over many years in its precise and vivid execution, mingling with that from Stuttgart with its greater concentration on older repertoire and association with Norrington's very different approach. By all accounts the new orchestra hasn't yet settled into an identity of its own, and may end up not really doing so, since its members, many of whom are now on part-time contracts rather than the full-time ones they used to have, tend when possible to gravitate towards those projects that suit their particular skills and/or preferences, so that to some extent there are still two orchestras.

[jayne lee wilson]

Turning to newer recordings and younger conductors, Yannick Nezet-Séguin with the Orchestra Métropolitain de Montreal (24/96, ATMA 2013) has clearly taken much trouble over rhythmic clarity in the first movement - you can hear the 2+3 in the violins throughout the peak tumult as the main theme crashes from development to recap. Impressive coda too - brilliant and articulate but not too final; Jochum remarked that he felt this symphony actually climaxes, oddly or not, at the end of the first movement. A structural or performance problem in itself perhaps, one not easily addressed by understating this wonderful coda (which as you'd expect, Jochum's Dresden recording certainly doesn't).
If initially seeming a little understated, this Montreal/YNS B6 compels attention by its sweet, natural melodic flow; a lovely continuity through its sectional boundaries, “moulded” but never self-consciously so. It’s fairly quick at some 54’, but never feels rushed, never abrupt or gearshiftingly awkward.
A tenderly lyrical reading, you could say in the Schubertian tradition - smooth singing lines, as compared to Klemperer’s craggy, angular drama. BUT with truly powerful, brazenly climactic brass. No lack of excitement there, and the effortless fluidity & transparency of the 24/96 sound serves the music beautifully (Bruckner does benefit, more than most, from hi-res).

Natural, wide dynamic range; not a hint of the rhetorical or grandiose; lovely coda to the adagio, rhythms just giusto in the scherzo, Eroica-inspired and inspiring horns in the trio; a marvellously fresh, affectionate and renewing Bruckner 6th.

***

[from different 2017 thread, revised]
….You could also try Ivor Bolton, live with the Mozarteum if you like a swifter, lighter view though with no lack of weight in tuttis - and (SO close to my present heart)
expressive tempo variabile.
Simpson maintained that the finale - doch nicht zu schnell - should not begin so fast that the conductor need slow down markedly for the gesangsperiode (need a free translation of that), losing the overall momentum. Well, Bolton seems to fly in the face of it, but with such naturalness in tempo choices and variations that Simpson might have respected it. How wonderful to hear that lyrical second group blossoming à la Knappertsbusch, all the time in the world to grow and to flower, then - diving back into the drama, singing out effortlessly again when the song comes back in the development.
Locus Classicus for this approach to the 6th (as for, even more so, the 2nd, and much else) has to be Volkmar Andreae, with those irreplaceable 1953 Vienna Symphony Strings singing on even more sweetly, then bitingly fast as the music gathers pace. There's a world of difference between this in-the-blood expressive variation of phrase and tempo in lyrical sections and the Monumentalised/Romanticised contrasts in Celi's Munich recording (admittedly, a magnificent example of its kind).

So how marvellous to find Venzago, with the SO Bern (CPO), doing just that Viennese, easy-as-breathing, singing-and-dancing thing - he's really wonderful at this point in the finale, with a lovely feel for the fluidity of the phrase. Compare with Norrington here, whose 6th has many merits, but his brusque, almost unvaryingly schnell finale tempo from the allegro through the gesang is not one of them. Rhythmically flat, and rather inexpressive.
(I say this as a huge fan of Norrington, and the late, lamented Stuttgart Sound…)

[Beef Oven!]

When I rejuvenated this thread, I did not expect that it would become expensive for me. I've added a few over the last few days and now Jayne, you've made the Yannick Nezet-Séguin Orchestra Métropolitain de Montreal Hi-Res download sound irresistible. It's downloading as I type.

[BBMmk2]

When I rejuvenated this thread, I did not expect that it would become expensive for me. I've added a few over the last few days and now Jayne, you've made the Yannick Nezet-Séguin Orchestra Métropolitain de Montreal Hi-Res download sound irresistible. It's downloading as I type.

I might need tio investigate this. Oh the joy of this Forum!