Bruckner Symphony no. 2

[Beef Oven!]

Murky waters....

https://www.abruckner.com/recordings/Pilz+CD+160+159+(mono)Symphony+No.+2+in+C+Minor/notestest.htm

This arrived recently, but Hans Knappertsbusch is still getting in the way...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01N5FFDIN/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

1872 Carragan anyway, unlike YNS...

Would be interested in your thoughts on the Ivor Bolton, when you get around to it. I have a CD of IB/SM Bruckner 5, but haven’t played it much.

[Barbirollians]

I have been playing the DG Jochum set a great deal recently and the Symphony No2 recording in Nowak guise (so without the horn in the second movement that Deryck Cooke lamented in his magisterial Dec 1967 review of Jochum's set ) has had as big an effect on me as Petrushka referred to early on in this thread. I don't find it stop go or stiff at all . More like a river in spate.

[jayne lee wilson]

I have been playing the DG Jochum set a great deal recently and the Symphony No2 recording in Nowak guise (so without the horn in the second movement that Deryck Cooke lamented in his magisterial Dec 1967 review of Jochum's set ) has had as big an effect on me as Petrushka referred to early on in this thread. I don't find it stop go or stiff at all . More like a river in spate.

Leaving aside the problems with the Nowak edition (almost identical to Haas, unless conductors observe later cuts themselves to those end of movement quotes in (i) and (iv); and then the adagio horn/clarinet scoring often seems down to conductorial whim or preference; the true, authenticated 1877 2nd is only to be found in the Carraghan edition as used by e.g. Venzago, Janowski) I wish more listeners would spend some time with - Volkmar Andreae at one end, and Venzago at the other, of that more sinuous, flexible, volatile and above all Schubertian Brucknerian tradition which got a little forgotten in the hands of Jochum, Wand, Barenboim, Solti and so on...(Karajan's late Berlin records of Nos. 1-3 show him more aware of this than he is often given credit for...)

That slimmer, more flexible sound connects to the source of the river, so the spate flows more naturally, with greater expressive range and variety of colour, more natural tempo variations... (I note that DC himself, in the 1967 review, mentions "an undue sense of hurry" in that very Bruckner 2nd you refer to; and as a more general comment on Jochum: "I am always jerked out of my absorption in the music when he suddenly jams on the brakes, or puts his foot down hard." My problem too, precisely... ).

I think it is important to look around the usual Brucknerian suspects to perceive what the music is made from and is capable of. For a more convincingly impassioned, creative, large-scale Romantic view, you really should try the Konwitschny - one of the earliest and greatest Bruckner 2nds.

Shame Knappertsbusch never did it..

[Barbirollians]

Leaving aside the problems with the Nowak edition (almost identical to Haas, unless conductors observe later cuts themselves to those end of movement quotes in (i) and (iv); and then the adagio horn/clarinet scoring often seems down to conductorial whim or preference; the true, authenticated 1877 2nd is only to be found in the Carraghan edition as used by e.g. Venzago, Janowski) I wish more listeners would spend some time with - Volkmar Andreae at one end, and Venzago at the other, of that more sinuous, flexible, volatile and above all Schubertian Brucknerian tradition which got a little forgotten in the hands of Jochum, Wand, Barenboim, Solti and so on...(Karajan's late Berlin records of Nos. 1-3 show him more aware of this than he is often given credit for...)

That slimmer, more flexible sound connects to the source of the river, so the spate flows more naturally, with greater expressive range and variety of colour, more natural tempo variations... (I note that DC himself, in the 1967 review, mentions "an undue sense of hurry" in that very Bruckner 2nd you refer to; and as a more general comment on Jochum: "I am always jerked out of my absorption in the music when he suddenly jams on the brakes, or puts his foot down hard." My problem too, precisely... ).

I think it is important to look around the usual Brucknerian suspects to perceive what the music is made from and is capable of. For a more convincingly impassioned, creative, large-scale Romantic view, you really should try the Konwitschny - one of the earliest and greatest Bruckner 2nds.

Shame Knappertsbusch never did it..

The Jochum recording seems very Schubertian to me . I also have the VSO/Giulini and the Nakasugi but will seek out the Venzago .

[BBMmk2]

I have that Jochum set. Looks like I have missed something here?

[HighlandDougie]

I thought that I might have outwitted the mighty John Berky by buying a release in Beijing a couple of weeks ago he didn't know about - China NCPO Orchestra/Lu Jia - but, no, it's on his list. And very good it is, too (the National Centre for the Performing Arts Concert Hall has absolutely superb acoustics). 1877, ed. Carrigan.

[Barbirollians]

I have to admit to being lukewarm on the Venzago a bit lightweight and as if he was straining to make it sound like Schubert.

[jayne lee wilson]

I think Venzago is quite explicitly Schubertian in Bruckner 0-2, as his notes imply. (Not sure about straining though, it sounds very swift, songful and effortless to me...gorgeous adagio too). And he does give us the authentic 1877 revision, which I see as the "short, fast" Bruckner 2 as opposed to the expansive, lyrical 1872 one.

Which is why he uses Chamber Orchestras in these works, then moves up to full-orchestra (Berne and Basel) for 3 and 4. I always longed to hear Nos. 1 and 2 played this way and quickly fell in love. (That recent Gergiev 1st seems to me an unimaginative throwback to the idea that all Bruckner has to be grim-jawed, grave and grand...).

As early as 1953 Andreae plays the shorter, revised 2nd (well, at least some version of it ) with a vividly Schubertian cast, albeit with a certain aggressive waspishness. If you find Venzago too far into the Schubertian spectrum, you can move up through the middle-weight Mozarteum/Bolton, using the full 1872 score, to the warm relaxed, full-orchestral meadows of Tintner or Young; or a sharper swifter, more dramatic turn from Blomstedt, which has many virtues, not least the easier integration of that unexpectedly angry finale into an otherwise seemingly relaxed, lyrical work.

Brucknerians are very lucky now, with such varied presentations of such wonderful music. But I do think the chamber- or smaller-orchestral interpretations - of which there are still very few - have restored something essential to his vision which got a little lost through the posturing stereophonic grandeur of the 60s and 70s.
(Not from Karajan though, whose late-recorded 2nd is strikingly free of tonal overload, and notably both sharp and fluid, moving effortlessly between the two as the music asks, in its articulations).

[BBMmk2]

As many will know, for some reason I've had a lot of trouble over the years in getting to grips with the Bruckner 2 when all the others (including Symphony 0) posed no problems whatever.

However, last Sunday I played Jochum's Bavarian RSO recording and really liked it so the struggle is over, I think. Strange how this symphony has eluded me for so long.

I have his set. I really must get back to it.

[Beef Oven!]

This afternoon I listened through the Venzago/Northern Sinfonia Bruckner 2 and enjoyed it very much. The chamber forces support the approach of placing the symphony on the late-classical/early-romantic intersection. I will listen again in the coming days.

[BBMmk2]

This afternoon I listened through the Venzago/Northern Sinfonia Bruckner 2 and enjoyed it very much. The chamber forces support the approach of placing the symphony on the late-classical/early-romantic intersection. I will listen again in the coming days.

A chamber version?

[Beef Oven!]

A chamber version?

No, Bruckner didn't write a chamber version.

[Bryn]

No, Bruckner didn't write a chamber version.

That would be a Payne:

[Beef Oven!]

That would be a Payne:

Shame Schoenberg didn't do one

[BBMmk2]

Shame Schoenberg didn't do one

That would be something. Or I could write one for concert band?