Bruckner

[RichardB]

Really off-thread now, but Terry Eagleton's new book, Critical Revolutionaries, has a pretty good go at restating the rationale for it....

Thanks for that, I've been wondering what to read next.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Really off-thread now, but Terry Eagleton's new book, Critical Revolutionaries, has a pretty good go at restating the rationale for it....

Those of us who’ve waited 40 years for that style of criticism to come back into fashion can scarcely believe it.

[Bryn]

Download of the month from a.bruckner.com: https://www.abruckner.com/downloads/...3wNUxMrAHqECGU

i.e. a FLAC of the excellent Sinfonica of Lonon/Wyn Morris Helgoland. With Windows, just right-click on the download link and "Save link as ...".

[bluestateprommer]

For anyone there who fancies trips across the Channel for an Anton Bruckner symphony cycle, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has you in mind, for a cycle scheduled over the next two seasons:

https://www.concertgebouworkest.nl/nl/bruckner-cyclus

No. 3: 17 December 2023 (Ivan Fischer)
No. 7: 19 January 2024 (Myung-whun Chung)
No. 5: 2 May 2024 (Klaus Mäkelä)
No. 8: 20 June 2024 (Christian Thielemann)
No. 2: 27 September 2024 (Andrew Manze)
No. 4: 3 October 2024 (Daniel Harding)
No. 1: 8 December 2024 (Vladimir Jurowski)
No. 6: 17 January 2025 (Simone Young)
No. 9: 6 February 2025 (Riccardo Chailly) (*)

(*) For No. 9, "in voltooide vorm" translates as "in completed form". Guess we'll learn later which completion that Chailly will use.

[Bryn]

Anyone wondering which edition of Bruckner's 8th was broadcast on TtN last night, it was the Haas. Not mentioned in the listing or the on-air (or online) presentation, of course.

[kernelbogey]

Do the presenters ever give that information? Unsure I've ever heard it stated.

[Flay]

Anyone wondering which edition of Bruckner's 8th was broadcast on TtN last night, it was the Haas. Not mentioned in the listing or the on-air (or online) presentation, of course.

Sadly I thought it a lugubrious, plodding performance. Is the Haas the version the one most frequently performed (forgive my ignorance)?

[CallMePaul]

Sadly I thought it a lugubrious, plodding performance. Is the Haas the version the one most frequently performed (forgive my ignorance)?

The Haas version includes several bars cut by Bruckner. Haas thought that the cuts were made under duress, but his edition does not represent any performance of the symphony during the composer's lifetime. It is considered by many to be "musicologically incorrect" (my phrase) but many conductors, including Haitink, Wand, Karajan and Thielmann, have preferred it to the Nowak edition published in the 1950s. Haas's membership of the NSDAP meant that he lost his official positions after World War 2 and his Bruckner work was continued and replaced under Nowak's direction.

[Bryn]

The Haas version includes several bars cut by Bruckner. Haas thought that the cuts were made under duress, but his edition does not represent any performance of the symphony during the composer's lifetime. It is considered by many to be "musicologically incorrect" (my phrase) but many conductors, including Haitink, Wand, Karajan and Thielmann, have preferred it to the Nowak edition published in the 1950s. Haas's membership of the NSDAP meant that he lost his official positions after World War 2 and his Bruckner work was continued and replaced under Nowak's direction.

Please remember that Nowak, later, also edited the 1887 'original' version. Frankly, I give more credence to the openly conjectural 'reconstruction', by Carragan, of a putative interim version of 1888 than I do the Haas pick 'n mix. There's a laughably ignorant review of the Schaller recording of the Carragan '1888' edition. After dismissing Carragan's work, out of hand, kitchen department hand Hurwitz, goes on to offer Maazel and Wand as "Reference Recording" (that's singular in Hurwitz's use). How can recordings of different editions be taken as reference recordings for a very different one? Of course, Hurwitz fails to cite the editions actually deployed by Maazel and Wand.

[Dave2002]

For anyone there who fancies trips across the Channel for an Anton Bruckner symphony cycle, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has you in mind, for a cycle scheduled over the next two seasons:

https://www.concertgebouworkest.nl/nl/bruckner-cyclus

No. 3: 17 December 2023 (Ivan Fischer)
No. 7: 19 January 2024 (Myung-whun Chung)
No. 5: 2 May 2024 (Klaus Mäkelä)
No. 8: 20 June 2024 (Christian Thielemann)
No. 2: 27 September 2024 (Andrew Manze)
No. 4: 3 October 2024 (Daniel Harding)
No. 1: 8 December 2024 (Vladimir Jurowski)
No. 6: 17 January 2025 (Simone Young)
No. 9: 6 February 2025 (Riccardo Chailly) (*)

(*) For No. 9, "in voltooide vorm" translates as "in completed form". Guess we'll learn later which completion that Chailly will use.

Very tempting - but a bit expensive to keep travelling to Amsterdam. Should be splendid in the Concertgebouw - a superb venue.

[cloughie]

Received the Naxos Newsletter email today which included mention of Bruckner Symphonies and like M&S food - not just any Bruckner Symphonies but Hansjorg Albrecht’s organ transcriptions of the complete shmphonies - I think I Imight sample a few movements but Can’t imagine anything but a fair amount of tedium will abound should I attempt to trawl through the set. Is this intlerent of me or a sensible view?
what do you organ scholars and Bruckner fans think?

[smittims]

I don't care for arrangements generally, where we have adequate recordings of the original. In some cases they have historic interest in their own right, for instance the chamber ensemble versions made for Schoenberg's Verein fur musikalische Privatauffuhrungen or Elgar's rescored and abridged versions of his works he made for early acoustic recordings . And sometimes a piano transcription can bring out detail, as in Percy Grainger's two-piano version of Song of the High Hills.

But I don't think I'd listen much if at all to organ arrangements of orchestral works . The organ repertoire is wonderfully rich enough without playing non-organ works. I do recall an old friend who use to play the '48' on the organ. Some of them work very well (e.g. the Csharp minor in Book One).

[Petrushka]

Received the Naxos Newsletter email today which included mention of Bruckner Symphonies and like M&S food - not just any Bruckner Symphonies but Hansjorg Albrecht’s organ transcriptions of the complete shmphonies - I think I Imight sample a few movements but Can’t imagine anything but a fair amount of tedium will abound should I attempt to trawl through the set. Is this intlerent of me or a sensible view?
what do you organ scholars and Bruckner fans think?

As a huge Bruckner fan I can't imagine anything worse than listening to the symphonies on the organ - and I'm also an organ fan.

Bruckner was an organist but never composed any music for his instrument. All of his symphonies were written for the orchestra and just because he was an organist is, imo, a poor excuse for transcribing them for the organ. If he'd wished them to be heard that way he'd have written them for the organ in the first place!

Once again, poor Bruckner. The things he has to put up with!

[smittims]

I've read that Bruckner improvised at the organ, and was one of the guest organists invited to play the new Albert Hall organ when new. What a pity it couldn't be recorded!

I wonder if anyone who heard him remembered it when his symphonies started to be performed here.

[Jonathan]

Bruckner did notate a few pieces for organ, I believe one of them is an improvisation and another is the 'Perg' Prelude. I reviewed one of the organ transcriptions for MusicWeb a few years ago, I can't remember a thing about it!

[gurnemanz]

A few years ago, after reading Herrin des Hügels, a biography of Cosima Wagner by Oliver Hilmes, I commented in a thread about Liszt on the circumstances of his funeral, which was a half-hearted affair, his daughter being preoccupied with the Bayreuth Festival. Bruckner was on hand to play the organ. When some of Liszt's students asked him why he hadn't played something by the deceased composer he said he didn't know anything, so had improvised on Parsifal. It was high summer and Felix Mottl reported that at the post-funeral evening party thrown by Cosima in Wahnfried, the smell of the dead Liszt still lingered in the hallway.