Bruckner 8 Rattle and LSO - Barbican Thursday and Radio Three

[Ein Heldenleben]

I'd be interested on knowing what posters on the Record Review Bruckner thread , or indeed any one else thought of this. I postponed viewing Line of Duty to listen and rather glad I did. Technically very proficient - good night for the horn section in particular , with some beautiful moments . But strangely it did not move me as much as the slow , controversial but magnificent BBC SO / Leif Segerstam performance in the same hall over a year ago. If you have the time to spare well worth catching up with the Rattle on I-player though.

[Alison]

I enjoyed it very much. The brass had a better night than for Haitink 18 months ago.

Very little of that detail drawing attention to itself problem which for me has marred many a Rattle performance.

He did keep the symphony moving while still registering those beautiful moments.

Interesting comment from Martin Handley that the symphony seems to end almost abruptly - and that did strike me last night.

I never quite have the feeling of satisfaction and fulfilment at the symphony's end that I feel I should have.

[anton]

I was there and thought it was superb. I realise that Rattle is not always universally adored on this board, but this performance was wonderful. LSO magnificent, brass glorious, pacing just right, sound beautiful. The orchestra seemed excited to be playing under Rattle. My only tiny reservation was that the coda might have begun just a little bit too quickly for my taste.

I came to Bruckner just a few years ago, having previously thought he tried hard but didn't quite cut the mustard. Then I was enlightened by a brief brass passage from the first movement of the fourth, played on what was then CD Review. I've never looked back. This is stupendous stuff that cuts me to the quick. I hope that I see the light similarly with Mahler one day!

Interesting comment by Heldenleben above about Segerstam's performance last year. There were some remarkably fine moments which had me gasping from time to time, but it really WAS slow, to the point where the pulse seemed to have just about disappeared in places. And I seem to remember that the performance (unfairly) received a booing from one member of the audience near me.

I am not a musician, but can someone enlighten me on one aspect of last night's performance? The double basses were ranged, elevated, right across the back of the entire orchestra. The cellos were not to the conductor's right as I would normally expect, but to the left, and there may have been other 'rearrangements'. Was this deliberate or is this fairly common? I must say that (unusually) I had no issue with the acoustics last night and I wonder whether Rattle did this deliberately to combat the acoustical shortcomings of the hall.

[Simon B]

I am not a musician, but can someone enlighten me on one aspect of last night's performance? The double basses were ranged, elevated, right across the back of the entire orchestra. The cellos were not to the conductor's right as I would normally expect, but to the left, and there may have been other 'rearrangements'. Was this deliberate or is this fairly common? I must say that (unusually) I had no issue with the acoustics last night and I wonder whether Rattle did this deliberately to combat the acoustical shortcomings of the hall.

This was a very unusual layout for a British orchestra. In some respects it seemed to be emulating an arrangement you might more often see the Berlin Philharmonic (one of whose horn players, Sarah Willis, was among the Wagner tubas last night) use in this work. One aspect of it was that the tubas (the standard orchestral bass tuba plus the quartet of Wagner tubas) are often regarded as a single entity, a "choir" in this piece and were arranged as a single row together. In general, the layout had each of the brass "choirs" arranged in blocks to a greater extent than usual.

Placing the trumpets far left and at the very back had the undesirable effect of making them seem rather distant and muddied (which is a first for the LSO) from my position, but the Barbican acoustic is highly inconsistent with the smallest of position changes so the effect could have been quite different 6 feet away. Likewise, the placing of the basses at the back did something similar to their sound rather than the extension and enhancement of presence you might hope for. Again, 6 feet away, different story perhaps. Timps sounded too close (with all the artefacts of damping that are normally smoothed away by distance, made audible, rather like breath sounds with flutes) and boomy being on the lowest level and towards the front. Personally I think the LSO simply sound "better" with the layout they normally adopt in the tricky acoustic of that hall...

FWIW, I thought it was beautifully played and lovingly shaped without too much micro-management, but I was left curiously unmoved. Not in the mood perhaps, but cumulative tension seemed limited. Nezet-Seguin and the LPO or (the much maligned) Eschenbach with the Vienna Phil at the Proms a few years ago are the only live performances of this piece that have really had me on the edge of my seat. Segerstam was quite something but I'm not sure I'd want to hear it done that way every time!

[ahinton]

Sadly, I've yet to hear this but, since Segerstam's earlier account of this magnificent symphony's been mentioned here, I thought that I'd throw in my two pennarth on that. I thought that distending it as he did was ridiculous. What I thought was even more ridiculous, however, was the way in which he contrived not merely got away with it but to produce so thrillingly convincing a result. I couldn't understand how (for me, at least), nothing ever seemed to sag and I even remember the shock of realising that the conclusion of the first movement seemed to have arrived so soon!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Good to hear from those there that the performance , by and large , came across as well in the hall as it did on radio . It is a very big orchestra for a relatively small space. I've many times been frustrated by the LSO woodwind being overwhelmed by strings in late romantic performances there. There was a lot of reference to the unusual continental layout on R3 last night - if it was the case that timps were stage level near the front that sounds a bit alarming.
In retrospect I think I made the 'mistake ' of following the performance with the score and , unlike Sir Simon, may have got bogged down in the detail . But what a score ... a visual as well as sonic masterpiece in its own right . The work that must have gone into that ....an absolutely extraordinary achievement .

[Nimrod]

I heard most of this on the radio and, although all the notes were there and played well, I felt strangely unmoved by most of it. Is it heresy to expect Bruckner to be more "exciting" than this??

[anton]

But it was exciting AND moving! At least I thought so. I do wonder whether there is sometimes something 'lost in translation' between the live concert hall (complete with the 'theatre' of a large orchestra) and the radio - especially with someone like Bruckner. I tend often to feel that he is somehow 'too big' for my radio (and even for a CD).

[Flay]

It was a surprising treat to hear Bruckner's 4th on the radio this afternoon. It certainly brightened up a dull motorway journey!

And the 7th is on TTN at 01.47

[Petrushka]

I greatly enjoyed this and wish I could have been there. In adopting the stage layout that he did Rattle achieved the near impossible: he made a British orchestra sound perfectly idiomatic in Bruckner. Those double basses lined up at the back (like the VPO) came across very well over the air and it seemed clear to me that Rattle has learned something from his time in Berlin.

The greatest Bruckner 8 I've heard in the concert hall was with Karajan and the BPO back in 1979 and nothing else will ever come close.

[Prommer]

Sadly, I've yet to hear this but, since Segerstam's earlier account of this magnificent symphony's been mentioned here, I thought that I'd throw in my two pennarth on that. I thought that distending it as he did was ridiculous. What I thought was even more ridiculous, however, was the way in which he contrived not merely got away with it but to produce so thrillingly convincing a result. I couldn't understand how (for me, at least), nothing ever seemed to sag and I even remember the shock of realising that the conclusion of the first movement seemed to have arrived so soon!

Where there is Leif, there is Life! I too keep coming back to that rendition. I always love a contrarian.... Will listen to the Rattle ASAP.

[ostuni]

I listened to this on the iplayer last night, and was hugely impressed. The radio balance seemed to have overcome all the problems that some live listeners reported: in particular, the timps were thrillingly present just where they need to be (the climaxes of the Scherzo, the early pages of the Finale - no recording I've heard (and my score has annotations from a dozen or so) has achieved such clarity and impact).

And the horns & Wagner tubas were glorious - again at least equalling anything I've heard before (that Wagner tuba moment in the Adagio - around 6.5 minutes in, bar 67 - has to be one of the most heart-meltingly beautiful things Bruckner ever did, and Rattle, the LSO, & Sarah W, were just perfect there).

I'm definitely going to try to find time to listen to it again before it drops off the iplayer.

[BBMmk2]

Will this be released on CD, LSO Live?

[jonfan]

What a wonderful performance. Rattle has enhanced his standing as a Bruckner conductor on this evidence with his long view of a symphony's progress. What precision from the LSO especially the strings and oh those horns and Wagner tubas! What a pity the LSO can't decamp to RAH when they programme music like this that needs the space to coalesce before meeting our ears or microphones. Was some extra resonance inserted tonight? Just thought some chords at the end of movements went on longer than the narrow confines of the Barbican allow.

[parkepr]

Only listened to snippets of it and on first impressions sounds great... The LSO have confirmed they've recorded it and it was also televised on Mezzo (if anyone is able to get this channel). As for the arrangement of the orchestra sounds very much like how Simon Rattle had it for his Bruckner 9 a years ago with the LSO at the Barbican (which was also prefaced with a Messian work)....