Bruckner: Symphonies No.1-3

[BBMmk2]

Just been talking about these works on my thread 'What are Listening to Now', and it struck me that these are very good works and there are beginning to start new recordings of these, for example by Abbado and Chailly, come to0 mind. Can boarders contribute to this|?

[Petrushka]

Time was when I rarely, if ever, listened to the first three Bruckner symphonies. They hardly ever featured on concert programmes (still the case unfortunately) and recordings were thin on the ground, most commentators viewing them as inferior to the great works that followed. For me, that began to change with Haitink's wonderful recording of the 3rd with the Vienna Philharmonic upon its release in 1990. Since then, I've found much pleasure in Abbado's various recordings of No 1. He appears to have had some affection for this symphony having recorded it three times, the latest one with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra of the Vienna version of 1891 (the other two were of the Linz version of 1866).

However, as every boarder must know by now, I still struggle with the 2nd despite having several recordings. Perhaps if Abbado had set down his thoughts or Haitink re-visited the work I might embrace it more wholeheartedly. The fact that Haitink hasn't re-visited it (whether in concert or not I don't know) does suggest to me that he is out of sympathy with it, a feeling I can share.

[Hornspieler]

Just been talking about these works on my thread 'What are Listening to Now', and it struck me that these are very good works and there are beginning to start new recordings of these, for example by Abbado and Chailly, come to0 mind. Can boarders contribute to this|?

I'm surprised (well, not really) that you did not include Bruckner's Symphony Nº 0 in your list.

Whether it was, in fact, his first venture into the symphonic repertoire, I am not certain. But I do have a recording of that work played by the Concertgebouw under Bernard Haitinck and I find it a very pleasurable listen.

My difficulty with all of the symphonies is "whose arrangement am I listening to this time?"

I also tend to fast forward some of those scherzos which, for me, return to the top of the page at least once too many times.

Still, the majesty of Bruckner's writing for the brass choir is stunning and all the more remarkable considering that he was an organist - not an orchestral player.

This looks to me like an interesting thread.

HS

[pastoralguy]

Does anyone have plans to purchase the 7th with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Ivan Fischer? I'm not a great Bruckner fan but this one duly beckons.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... most commentators viewing them as inferior to the great works that followed.

Weeell, yeerss. BUT there are so very, very few works in the Symphonic repertoire that aren't "inferior" to the later Bruckner Symphonies (which, for me, means Nos 5 - 9) that, if that was a valid criterion, two thirds of the concert staples wouldn't get played!

I'm glad that they get more frequent performances and recordings, I think they're marvellous works (as are the 0th and the slow Movement of the "James Bond" is the loveliest piece Mendelssohn didn't write). My favourite of the pre-#5s is the Second Symphony It's the Fourth Symphony that I have greatest problems with - but that's perhaps another Thread.


As is, indeed, the "Why are Bruckner's glorious Masses so neglected on record and in the Concert Hall?"

[Bryn]

Funny old world. I became familiar with 0, 1, 3 (revised versions) and the completed movements of the 9th a year or so before I knowingly encountered any of the others. From the start I had a particular soft spot for the 3rd, even in its slimmed down 1889 version. These days I tend to find the original thoughts more compelling than the afterthoughts, even re. the 8th. That said, I now find the 9th sold short without the most recent Samale/Mazzuca/Phillips/Cohrs completion of its final movement.

I would have thought the 00 (study symphony if F minor) was the first composed.

Oh, and I love the scherzi, all of them.

[BBMmk2]

That's the problem with Bruckner symphonies, per se. It's those editions!

[Roehre]

The Jochum DGG set plus the LSO/shapirra "Study" and Haitink's no.0 and no.3 (2nd version) were my starting points mid 1970s.

The "early " symphonies are just as inferior to the later ones as Beethoven's 1-8 are to his Ninth IMO (perhaps with the exception of no.00, but that really was a first attempt).
Haitink performed and recorded all of them quite early in his career, and was even the very first to record the 3rd in the 1878 version including the coda of the scherzo (the VPO-recording). A second take was started in Amsterdam shortly before his departure there and remained unfinished (as a 2nd Mahler cycle, combined with Berlin), and since the mid 1990s he is concentrating on 7-9.

Ever since the re-premiere in 1978 of the 3rd in the original 1873 version I am convinced that the original versions of all Bruckner symphonies [1,2,3,4,8] are the stuff to go for (perhaps with exception of the scherzo in the original 1874 version).

If we are to dis-like the early Bruckners because of their indebtness to Mendelssohn, Wagner, Beethoven etc, why do we listen to Schubert 1-6, recalling Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Rossini et al?

[HighlandDougie]

since the mid 1990s he is concentrating on 7-9.

But with the odd excursion - his January 2010 live recording of the 5th with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra has become one of my desert island discs. It's the Bruckner symphony I most like - I've no idea why - but I find it moving and musically deeply satisfying. I'd lived with - and loved - the live Horenstein recording of it for years but then this recording came along. Somehow Haitink just gets it right for me. There were snippy comments about it at the time on CD Review, no doubt because he adopts measured tempi. If that's a fault in some eyes, it's not in mine. But I've wandered off-topic somehow ......

[Petrushka]

Weeell, yeerss. BUT there are so very, very few works in the Symphonic repertoire that aren't "inferior" to the later Bruckner Symphonies (which, for me, means Nos 5 - 9) that, if that was a valid criterion, two thirds of the concert staples wouldn't get played!

I'm glad that they get more frequent performances and recordings, I think they're marvellous works (as are the 0th and the slow Movement of the "James Bond" is the loveliest piece Mendelssohn didn't write). My favourite of the pre-#5s is the Second Symphony It's the Fourth Symphony that I have greatest problems with - but that's perhaps another Thread.


As is, indeed, the "Why are Bruckner's glorious Masses so neglected on record and in the Concert Hall?"

I'm not sure that the first three symphonies are getting more frequent performances in the concert hall unless you mean 'more frequent' as opposed to 'zero'. In over 40 years of concert-going I've heard the 3rd once (RCO/Jansons), the 1st and 2nd not at all. The Proms archive reveals just one performance of No 1 (RCO/Chailly, 1992) and two of the No 2 (LPO/Haitink. 1971 and BBCSO/Rozhdestvensky, 1996). No 3 has done surprisingly well, 11 performances are listed in the archive.

Agree about the Masses.

[Richard Tarleton]

3rd with LPO/Haitink at RFH in '72 was my first live Bruckner - followed the same year (also RFH) by - I think - SNO/Gibson. Memory playing tricks here - I heard Horenstein conduct 2 Bruckner symphonies in the RFH, one was definitely 6, the other may have been 3 - does anyone know if there is a database of RFH performances ? (sadly my programme collection for that era does not survive).

But 1 and 2 are very recent discoveries, thanks to Naxos and suggestions on this forum - likewise 9, 4th movement! I now have the Giulini Testament 2, and the Tintner - which grows on me on repeated hearings. Still haven't tried 0, or 00!

[Roehre]

But with the odd excursion - his January 2010 live recording of the 5th with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra has become one of my desert island discs. It's the Bruckner symphony I most like - I've no idea why - but I find it moving and musically deeply satisfying. I'd lived with - and loved - the live Horenstein recording of it for years but then this recording came along. Somehow Haitink just gets it right for me. There were snippy comments about it at the time on CD Review, no doubt because he adopts measured tempi. If that's a fault in some eyes, it's not in mine. But I've wandered off-topic somehow ......

I should have written 5, 7-9, as I myself attended a concert in Zürich with the Tonhalle, where Haitink conducted 5 as well, in January 2012.

[jayne lee wilson]

I rarely listen to Bruckner 7-9 these days, unless Venzago is around to freshen my stale responses; the 5th I pretty much wore out by owning Klemperer's LP of it early on (though the finale can still work on me...).
I play the 2nd most often, the chief beneficiary of so much careful editing and recording of Original Versions. The 1872 Carraghan has at least three very fine recordings now: Tintner on Naxos and Simone Young on Oehms play it expansively, lyrically, allowing the pastoral moods to arise like an early morning mist. But my current favourite is Blomstedt on Querstand, recorded with the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 2010. He's fresher, sharper and quicker (by almost 10'!) than the others, but still retains the essential gentleness of the 2nd's unique inspiration.

I think the problem with the 1877 Novak edition (at least where the conductor (confusingly - as if we didn't have enough...) doesn't restore cuts, Haas-style (eg Karajan)) is that earlier conductors have tended to try to squeeze drama out of a symphony which scarcely has any of those climactic brass chorales which most listeners identify with Bruckner. This is music wie ein naturlaut, but with a human tenderness and warmth. Only the finale, and the coda of the original scherzo, have much bite or emotional conflict. And the climax of the Adagio should not be forced into grandeur - should scarcely be a climax at all; I feel all this is easier to perceive, and so to play, with the 1872 text.

With the 3rd - again, get to know ("for 40 days and 40 nights"...**) the original 1873 edition. Blomstedt has made two fine recordings of this in Leipzig, but the later 2010 Querstand one has the better sound and playing. A truly great Bruckner performance, like the 2nd. (Or, Inbal/FRSO or the REALLY heavenly lengths of Tintner). Venzago is marvellously Schubertian, fresh and innovative in all the first 4 symphonies (0-3) but perversely always plays the later revisions (including the most detested of all, the 1889 3rd, which the Bruckner Society would do well to place in a moratorium with a DNR attached). Funny how often "perverse" crops up when Venzago is discussed...).

**Does anyone know the quote - (from Erwin Stein?) about Schoenberg's Op.16 which included this phrase? "Listen to it for 40 days and 40 nights..." etc...

[CallMePaul]

I'm surprised (well, not really) that you did not include Bruckner's Symphony Nº 0 in your list.

Whether it was, in fact, his first venture into the symphonic repertoire, I am not certain.

There is an earlier, atypical symphony in F minor, written in 1863 and sometimes referred to as "No 00". It has been recorded at least twice, by Daniel Barenboim and Georg Tintner. I was under the impression that No 1 preceded No 0, but maybe there has been some new research. The late Philip Barford states that No 0 was written completed after No 1 but may have been started earlier.

[Petrushka]

Interested in this Bruckner cycle from Blomstedt but it comes with a hefty price tag attached http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bruckner-Sym...kner+blomstedt

Separate issues don't seem to be readily available at least on Amazon UK. I see that Amazon Germany have them but they're not likely to be on the Bargains thread any time soon.