Bruckner

[Karafan]

The FWM Bruckner 5th! My word yes, THERE'S a performance!

Still remember the first time I heard it, the Petrarchian fire-and-ice of the finale's coda thrilling through me - "I freeze in summer, and in winter burn!"

Which B5 is this you're referring to please Janye?

K.

[cloughie]

This coming Friday, Radio 3 is broadcasting a performance of Bruckner symphony no 5 played by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by FWM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qdzmq

7 was on this afternoon. Will try it later!

[BBMmk2]

I must have a look at some of the more contemperary recordings of Bruckner's symphonies, FWM's 5th, which JLW seem to enthuse about!

[jayne lee wilson]

This is the live LPO one, on tour from the Vienna Konzerthaus in 1993, released 1994, EMI 555125 originally. Very swift and dramatic at 70'25, sound as stunning as they come in a room just made for Bruckner.
If you have the Gramophone archive, RO's review (and what a review) is in 4/95.

Which B5 is this you're referring to please Janye?

K.

[Colonel Danby]

which is the one I've got as well Jayne on EMI: and very fine it is! Obviously I've got Karajan with the Bruckner cycle in the complete set (I mean, who hasn't, darling) but the live LPO live Vienna performance is very special indeed.

[Karafan]

This is the live LPO one, on tour from the Vienna Konzerthaus in 1993, released 1994, EMI 555125 originally. Very swift and dramatic at 70'25, sound as stunning as they come in a room just made for Bruckner.
If you have the Gramophone archive, RO's review (and what a review) is in 4/95.

Thanks Jayne!

[Barbirollians]

FWM - is rather inconsistent to my ears - a number of dreary recordings and concerts leavened with the odd cracking recording like his Mahler 4 and schmidt 4th.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Re-booting this Thread in case anyone wishes to continue the discussion (which threatened to overtake the "Let's all learn a new Symphony" Thread) about the various Editions of the Symphonies. Bbm sort of kicked off with:

All these editions of Bruckner's works do seem rather confusing, Novak Carraghan et al. Do we really know what Bruckner intended, at all?

... to which I replied:

Oh yes: we have all the various editions, all taken from his own manuscripts and alterations. The "trouble" is that Bruckner altered the details of the works (sometimes subtly, sometimes drastically) in order to achieve these "intentions". Thus, there isn't a "definitive" version of, say, the Eighth (for all Haas' attempts to create one) - the two versions of 1887 and 1890 are equally "valid" expressions of the composer's intentions: performers and listeners can prefer one or the other, or revel in both. The editions are merely ways that editors allow the different versions to be accessible to the wider public.

Barbirollians commented:

In the Eighth I have always preferred Haas to Nowak - except when Giulini and Jochum are conducting the latter !

I love Jochum's BPO Eighth- all manner of things wrong with it I am sure especially accelerations and decelerations but it was the recording that made me fall for Bruckner after finding him all too long and turgid before.

... which solicited this bit of grammatically-challenged nostalgia from me:

The Jochum BPO was the version I learnt the work from (via a car cassette and several long journeys).

Haas, of course, is the only edition of the Eighth Symphony that Bruckner never saw; and the only one to include Music not written by Bruckner. It has had many superb recordings, (Wand, Karajan, Haitink - Furtwangler [who cuts out the Haas bars] and some, like Böhm, that make up their own conflation of Haas and Nowak) but I've come to prefer the two Nowaks (no - not "Leopold and Kim"!) to get the whole world of this astonishing Symphonies. (Or, "these astonishing Symphony".)

... prompting the pertinent question from Bbm:

So, could you say thyat these 'editions' and Bruckner's own are all hybrids?

... to which Bryn replied:

The main one used frequently today which can rightly be termed a hybrid is the Haas edition of the 8th, a small amount of which was composed by Haas, rather than Bruckner.

... and from me:

Not really, Bbm - as Bryn says, only the Haas can accurately be called a "hybrid", in that it takes the two main editions and splices what he (and many others) thought were the "best bits" of each to make a ... well, hybrid (or "composite") edition. Many conductors have done their own splicing of their favourite passages, but, as these haven't been published, these hybrids are not "editions".

Bruckner did two versions of his Eighth Symphony, each with their own strengths. Rather than this being a weakness, I think we're lucky to have two valid different ideas of how the composer's mind worked - and how Symphonic thought can take different routes. To come back to topic, there are worse ways of spending time than "learning" the two versions equally well - but it can be very disconcerting at first: familiar passages suddenly take different turns that can only seem "wrong" if you're used to the other version(s)! Completely different experience from that of learning a new work for the first time.

Forumites might have other ideas and views about the various editions of the Bruckner symphonies (and not just the Eighth)?

[BBMmk2]

Well, Ferney, thank you for re-booting this thread. With all these, editions etc etc, it does send the mind boggling, somehow? Is Bruckner's own editions, of his 8th, for example, would they be the ones to have, as opposed to say the others that have been mentioned?

[Richard Tarleton]

I thought I had saved a reply from Roehre a few years back in which he listed all the various Bruckner editions and revisions, but can't now find it. I wonder if he can reprise it? If I remember correctly he calculated that if Bruckner had not spent all that time revising he would have had time to compose 27 symphonies

[BBMmk2]

Is he abroad again?

[jayne lee wilson]

With Bruckner, there's always a long version and a short version...

Symphonies 1-4, short version...

1) 1866 Original "Linz" version is THE ONE, preferably in Carraghan's edition based on Haas's 1935 report, with some surprising differences (over the usually-played 1877 "Linz") even including the orchestration of the final cadence! The Tintner Naxos CD has this edition. The more usually heard-and-recorded 1877 "Linz" is fine though. Sadly, the only real effect of the 1890 "Vienna" version was to help prevent Bruckner from finishing his own 9th Symphony. It's odd to listen to it, clothed in Bruckner's later orchestral style, the freshness of the Linz version rather glossed and smoothed over, with some finale rhythms simplified. Worth a listen for obsessive Brucknerians (as an obsessive-compulsive rather than musically-compulsive creation...).

2) Since the appearance on record of the ed. Carraghan 1872 original text with scherzo second, those earlier Haas or Novak versions have been superseded. It is musically the finest (lighter orchestration enhances its pastoral feel) and the best to listen to (recorded by Tinter, Young, Blomstedt et al). Earlier versions with scherzo placed third broadly break down into Haas 1872, which restores musically damaging cuts to (i), (ii) and (iv); Nowak 1877, which preserves those cuts (wrongly in my view). And those of conductors e.g. Karajan who conflate Haas and Nowak. (You may or may not consider this a good thing).
Love your Giulini/VSO, love your Karajan? As I said recently elsewhere, "the past is another country; they do things differently there".

3) You simply have to become familiar with the 1873 original version (ed. Nowak), in order to appreciate the savagery wrought upon the symphony by later misguided "abridgements". 1889 is the worst, but even 1877 still preserves the disjointed finale, and the development-juggernaut grinding to a halt in (i)!
The 1873 3rd ( Blomstedt, Inbal, Tintner, Norrington et al) is a vast and noble conception which still feels, to some extent, provisional (or maybe we still haven't caught up with Bruckner here...) ; it needed refinement, not the reductive editorial assaults upon it provoked by Bruckner's misunderstanding friends. If you find it hard going, just relax and play "spot the Wagner quotation". Fun with Bruckner!

4) MUCH easier. The 1878-80 revision is "the one we all know", and differences between editions are effectively insignificant in performance. The 1874 original, with a completely different (and very inferior) scherzo, is probably the least musically satisfactory version of any Bruckner symphony; no, it's not sketchy, if anything there's too much going on! But it sounds a bit raw, unflowing and unrefined. Dedicated Brucknerians should hear it, of course... if you come to it familiar with 1878-80 there'll be plenty of surprises!
(There was a further, quite extensive, revision dating from 1888. Until Haas's edition appeared in the 1930s this was the accepted version, with many modifications to both orchestration and the music itself; Haas and Novak both felt (with well-documented reason) that the Schalk brothers had been all-too "instrumental" in this revision, but it can be heard on the Vanska/Minneapolis/BIS CD, in an edition by Korstvedt).

(In fact, there are SEVEN recognised versions of No.4, including one with a heavily cut finale by Gustav Mahler! The above, eagle's-eye sweep of 1-4 is neither scholarly nor complete, but gives you an idea of the main landmarks...
From No. 5 on, things do get a bit more straightforward, apart from No.8....)

[Hornspieler]

Paavo Berglund made a fine recording of the third symphony with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. I don't remember whose version was used, but it was certainly very authentic sounding - unlike many performances that I have heard since.
I have it copied onto CD, but the original LP is long gone, so I can't remember under which label it was issued, but most likely an EMI recording.

HS

[BBMmk2]

having all these editions, does rather make life confusing!!

[Mahler's3rd]

I've got Daniel Barenboim's Bruckner set, and the 4th/9th With Simon Rattle, 7th BBC SSO Donald Runnicles (Superb Incidentally) and Bruckner's 8th from The RFH With The Halle/John Barbirolli In 1970. Do Friends Colleagues have any recommendations for another complete cycle I could add to my growing Bruckner collection?, Really Looking forward to The "Mini Brucker Series" at The Barbican in April