Bruckner 6?

[Gordon]

Whose recorded version? Which edition? I have the Klemperer - Haas - which seems to be a highly recommended version but feel that I should also try the original version. RR BAL doesn't seem to have done it.

It's not a work I know well and since we will be going to Rattle's performance in April at the Anvil with the OAE so I feel the need to do my prep!! I wonder which edition he will use.

[Nick Armstrong]

Whose recorded version? Which edition? I have the Klemperer - Haas - which seems to be a highly recommended version but feel that I should also try the original version. RR BAL doesn't seem to have done it.

It's not a work I know well and since we will be going to Rattle's performance in April at the Anvil with the OAE so I feel the need to do my prep!! I wonder which edition he will use.

I have NEVER liked the Klemperer. At all.

The recording I always turn to is by Sawallisch and the Bavarian State Orchestra on Orfeo - just splendiferous and very moving. I agree with the unanimous reviewers on this page.



I'm afraid I cannot off-hand recall which version it is (if you want me to, I could look in the booklet - the cover illustrations on that page are no help) - but frankly, I don't care, with music-making of this calibre.

[vinteuil]

Whose recorded version? Which edition? I have the Klemperer - Haas - which seems to be a highly recommended version but feel that I should also try the original version. RR BAL doesn't seem to have done it.

It's not a work I know well and since we will be going to Rattle's performance in April at the Anvil with the OAE so I feel the need to do my prep!! I wonder which edition he will use.

... if it's the OAE that you are going to - and if hitherto you've been used to Klemperer - then you might find it quite a gear-change.

To help the transition you might like -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001CH3BRO

He uses the Nowak edn; I believe that Bruckner 6 is not as bedevilled by arguments over which edition to use as some of the other Symphonies...

Actually my current Bruckner choice is Venzago (thanks to JLW and others on these Boards) - so do try :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BEMV0SO

[Richard Barrett]

my current Bruckner choice is Venzago

Mine too. I would expect Rattle and the OAE to relate most closely to this among the recordings I know. Although I got to know the 6th (rather later than most of the others) through the Celibidache - Munich Philharmonic recording, which I still like a lot. The complex rhythmical superimpositions in the first movement are razor-sharp (unlike with Klemperer for example), the slow movement is particularly memorable, and there's none of SC's tendency to slow things right down as he does in the 9th (although I like that also).

[Barbirollians]

What version is the Norrington ? It was very well reviewed I recall . Just checked - it was the Nowak which as I understand it is the original version .

I love the Klemperer !

[Beef Oven!]

Horst Stein VPO Eloquence or Sergiu Celibidache MPO EMI.

It's only the finale in Celi's account that lets it down. A tad hurried and perfunctory. Otherwise it'd be top cat.

Klemperer does not take off, for me.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Richard Osborne reviewed the different available versions of the Bruckner Sixth for a BaL back in 1981/82: there were about five of them! He plumped for Klemperer, but did say that an ideal recording would have the two outer movements of the Klemperer, and the two inner movements from Barenboim's (Chicago) account!

I have yet to hear the Venzago, but Norrington's Hanssler Classics recording is as perfect as we have any right to expect: fire, colour, pathos and structure all perfectly controlled and at the service of the work. Norrington's finest hour in the recording studio, IMO - crass cover photo notwithstanding!

[Conchis]

If you don't get on with Klemperer (and I do - it's still my top choice), you might want to hear Blomstedt and the SFSO, coupled with the Siegfried Idyll, on Decca.

[Nick Armstrong]

Actually my current Bruckner choice is Venzago (thanks to JLW and others on these Boards) - so do try :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BEMV0SO

I have yet to hear the Venzago

Same here!

Definitely on the list now...

Update: that set is on Apple Music Rainy Saturday forecast? Sorted!

[jayne lee wilson]

I was amazed to see criticism of the Klemperer, sound and music, here a few, months ago, since both the issues here - the EMI GROC and the earlier EMI Studio sound excellent in the classic EMI Kingsway style (GROC a bit smoother, better resolved). "Majestic, magisterial, magnificently architectural" said Deryck Cooke, while RO described the recording as "wonderfully spacious, the balances first rate.... gaunt, highly individual, immensely imposing". Klemperer doesn't hang about - which appeals to me greatly now - his adagio takes 14'42. I admire the Celibidache Munich PO in the quicker movements, but his 22'01 adagio just loses me I'm afraid. I don't think I have a short attention span, but...

Otherwise it's Barenboim/CSO, Norrington/SWR, almost-impossible-to-find Rozhdestvensky/USSRSSO....Blomstedt's recent Leipzig GO cycle is mostly excellent but I've not heard the 6th from it. Reviewed very well though. I do like Haitink's bracingly swift & direct 1970 Concertgebouw 6th - c/w an equally no-nonsense 7th on Philips Duo (a recent RR Bal Choice for 7).

Accessible shortlist.... Klemperer and Norrington (or if you don't usually care for RN's approach to life, Haitink).

Venzago is fascinating but too idiosyncratic for an only-or-first choice. OAE/Rattle should be very interesting - hope it's relayed...

(Editions? As with 5 & 7, thank god, differences between them are truly insignificant).

[mahlerei]

I didn't read the thread title properly and have only just realised it's 6, not 7.

Klemperer for me.

[richardfinegold]

Oldies but goodies for me--Jochum/Dresden and Wand/Cologne

[P. G. Tipps]

My first encounter with this work was with Solti/Chicago S.O. many years ago which has long tended to be the one with which I've continued to favour. I also like Chailly with the Berlin Phil.

However, since I recently discovered that cycle with the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra/Rozhdestvensky on YouTube, I can tell you that you could do a lot worse than download and listen to that raw, no-holds-barred account of the symphony. Alas, I don't know if it's possible to purchase any of this wonderful cycle (+) in the UK.

Current attitudes to the Sixth are a real mystery to me. It's the most concise and, imho, the easiest 'listen' of all the symphonies from 3-9 and yet it's rarely performed.

It's a funny old world indeed.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I also like Chailly with the Berlin Phil.

Chailly's CD recording is with the Concertgebouw, and the BPO performance (which looks superb) available only (AFAIK) through the BPO Digital Concert Hall:

https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/3414?a=youtube&c=true

Current attitudes to the Sixth are a real mystery to me. It's the most concise and, imho, the easiest 'listen' of all the symphonies from 3-9 and yet it's rarely performed.

The only work by Bruckner discussed by Tovey in his influential series of Essays in Musical Analysis, it is surprising that the Sixth did not gain a more popular place in concert programmes in the UK. Paradoxically, it is the Bruckner Symphony that I have heard most frequently Live - twice! And both times in the 1980s - in 1982 in Leeds Town Hall (Hallé/Loughran) and in 1985 in the RFH (Philharmonia/Salonen). A third performance is way overdue!

[jayne lee wilson]

Whose recorded version? Which edition? I have the Klemperer - Haas - which seems to be a highly recommended version but feel that I should also try the original version. RR BAL doesn't seem to have done it.

It's not a work I know well and since we will be going to Rattle's performance in April at the Anvil with the OAE so I feel the need to do my prep!! I wonder which edition he will use.

Sorry Gordon, I didn't look closely enough at this threadstarter and buried my answer in #10 above. Bruckner himself didn't make any revisions to No.6 so Haas and Novak should be identical or near-as-dammit. Mercifully the bowdlerized effort by Mahler never gained any currency. The one by Hynais only differs in the matter of trio 2nd-half repeat, but Haas or Novak are the ones usually played.

(PGT - the Rozh cycle was last available in a glorious remastering on the Russian Venezia label, only at HMV Japan (John F. Berky also supplied it briefly, but it was a genuinely limited edition. In two hefty boxes of 8 CDs each it contains almost every version or edition (save 1887 8th and 1872 2nd). If you find one, beg steal or borrow...)