Anton Bruckner Symphony Nº 0

[Hornspieler]

I've just been listening to the recording of this work by The Amsterdam Concervatoire under Bernard Haitinck.

What a delightful work! Does anyone else know it?

This record was given to me 15 years ago and I cannot remember ever listening to it.

Wonderful playing by the orchestra - especially the strings.

None of your Brucknerian gloom and repetetive scherzos - just a bit (in fact a lot) of fun.

HS

[antongould]

You are in good company HS it was the only Bruckner symphony salymap had any time for - IIRC she claimed it had been used, uncredited, in a Hitchcock film ....

[Stanfordian]

I've just been listening to the recording of this work by The Amsterdam Concervatoire under Bernard Haitinck.

What a delightful work! Does anyone else know it?

This record was given to me 15 years ago and I cannot remember ever listening to it.

Wonderful playing by the orchestra - especially the strings.

None of your Brucknerian gloom and repetetive scherzos - just a bit (in fact a lot) of fun.

HS

Hiya Hornspieler,

I think the recent recording by the Philharmonie Festiva/Gerd Schaller on Profil is excellent. It's reviewed on musicweb.

[Petrushka]

I think I know my Bruckner but the Symphony No 0 is one that I've hardly ever heard. I borrowed the Concertgebouw/Haitink LP from the library way back in the early 1970s and the only recording on my shelves is Chicago SO/Solti and I've not played that for many a year.

Perhaps JLW and PG Tipps would let us have their thoughts on this work.

[visualnickmos]

I think I know my Bruckner but the Symphony No 0 is one that I've hardly ever heard. I borrowed the Concertgebouw/Haitink LP from the library way back in the early 1970s and the only recording on my shelves is Chicago SO/Solti and I've not played that for many a year.

Perhaps JLW and PG Tipps would let us have their thoughts on this work.

Spooky! - I played the very same recording a few hours ago! Loved it Clocking in at 38 minutes, must be Bruckner's shortest composition...?

[Richard Barrett]

Nothing with Bruckner is ever simple of course - no.0 was actually written after no.1, but withdrawn by Bruckner and not published or performed until long after his death. Recordingwise, in my opinion nothing comes near the Venzago.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Spooky! - I played the very same recording a few hours ago! Loved it Clocking in at 38 minutes, must be Bruckner's shortest composition...?

Most performances of Die Nullte are over 40mins, visnick - and some close to 45. The "Study Symphony" (The "00") is the shortest of the Symphonies - there are plenty of his choral works that are much shorter.

[jayne lee wilson]

When the Venzago release of the noughtth appeared, c/w No.1 (with that gorgeous yellow & green abstract impasto cover design... I often take it out just to gaze upon the marvel, as worthy of contemplation as Charles Tomlinson's apothecary's jar) I thought - surely, this time....
...but no. It was still the musical disappointment it has always been. Despite the date of its composition, it sounds like another study symphony, a 'prentice-piece, pre-Bruckner, as if self-consciously working through its own stylistic quirks. For me it's utterly overshadowed by the brilliance, originality and endlessly inventive energy of Symphony No.1 - a work which seems to say "HERE I AM!" announcing the true symphonic arrival (poignantly so in the light of subsequent misguided editorial influence and interference) of a bold and confident creator.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Of course it's really no. 2 . . .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Of course it's really no. 2 . . .

No 3, really? As Richard Barrett pointed out, it was written after the c minor "First" Symphony, but the "Study" Symphony, (number "00") was the first "First".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... the first "First".

... so, perhaps - rather than "double zero", it should be referred to as "double First" (which is quite good for a "Student Symphony") except that in print that might look like "no 11". And that's the Ninth.

I greatly enjoy the "Nullte" - I think it works better when conductors don't give the impression that they're trying to turn it into a later work (imposing the aesthetics of, say, the Sixth or Seventh onto it) but let it speak in its own gentler, more easy-going terms. Skrowaczewski has the measure of it (on OEHMS with the Saarbruckners ).

I'm recently coming increasingly to the opinion that, "post-Karajan", the later Symphonies also get stronger with a "lighter", fleeter, more athletic approach to the reading, too.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Most performances of Die Nullte are over 40mins, visnick - and some close to 45. The "Study Symphony" (The "00") is the shortest of the Symphonies - there are plenty of his choral works that are much shorter.

I really should check for couplings when comparing Total Timings on the backs of CDs

You're absolutely right, of course, visnick - at around 36/37mins, the "0" is, with the "00" the shortest of Bruckner's Symphonies.

[visualnickmos]

I really should check for couplings when comparing Total Timings on the backs of CDs

You're absolutely right, of course, visnick - at around 36/37mins, the "0" is, with the "00" the shortest of Bruckner's Symphonies.

As I am still familiarising myself with Bruckner's symphonies, I hadn't realised that Solti (perhaps unsurprisingly) takes it at quite a lick. However it 'sounded fine' to my untrained ears! I certainly didn't know Bruckner wrote a '00' as well! Interesting thread, this is turning out to be - thanks to those whose knowledge of Bruckner (you, for example) is far, far greater than mine....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I certainly didn't know Bruckner wrote a '00' as well!

It doesn't really sound "Brucknerian" - some lovely moments, and the Slow Movement is gorgeous. Stan the Man again does it full justice:

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

No need for the <sadface>, by the way - hearing a repertoire like this for the first time is an enviable situation

[visualnickmos]

... hearing a repertoire like this for the first time is an enviable situation

That's a very good and positive way of looking at it - I'll drink to that, too