Bruckner

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

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 Carraghan 1872 original text with scherzo second, those earlier Haas or Novak versions have been superseded.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....)

[Richard Tarleton]

Thank you for this, jayne, very helpful esp (in my case) re 3!

[BBMmk2]

This has been a most helpful thread, especially that rather illuminating post by JLW, regarding the different editions in the symphonies. It's a wonder that in his three masses, there are not other editions in those. But are there?

[Bryn]

Ideed, thanks jlw. I first heard a version of the 3rd, via the Third, in my early teens. I remember finding it much to my liking but was most intrigued by the references, in the announcer's introduction, to an original version which had included quotation from Wagner's works. From then on I wanted to hear a performance of that original version. In the event, my initial hearing of it was via the LCP/Norrington recording, which I still cherish, though his later 'live' recording with the Stuttgarters has since replaced it as my most favoured. I must check out the Blomstedt, however.

[Roehre]

Ideed, thanks jlw. I first heard a version of the 3rd, via the Third, in my early teens. I remember finding it much to my liking but was most intrigued by the references, in the announcer's introduction, to an original version which had included quotation from Wagner's works. From then on I wanted to hear a performance of that original version. In the event, my initial hearing of it was via the LCP/Norrington recording, which I still cherish, though his later 'live' recording with the Stuttgarters has since replaced it as my most favoured. I must check out the Blomstedt, however.

I heard live the september 1978 premiere of the 1873 version of symphony 3, and a friend of mine taped it, a cassette tape still worth listening to on my shelves.

As far as the (numbered) Masses are concerned (not to mention the cross-quotes between these -no.1 IIRC- and the early symphonies, at least from no.2 -the wind-accompanied Mass in e that is- there exists [or once existed?] another, earlier version. AFAIK not published so far.

[Bryn]

I heard live the september 1978 premiere of the 1873 version of symphony 3, and a friend of mine taped it, a cassette tape still worth listening to on my shelves.

As far as the (numbered) Masses are concerned (not to mention the cross-quotes between these -no.1 IIRC- and the early symphonies, at least from no.2 -the wind-accompanied Mass in e that is- there exists [or once existed?] another, earlier version. AFAIK not published so far.

Ironic that the 1873 version had to travel from Austria to Australia for its first modern performance.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

This has been a most helpful thread, especially that rather illuminating post by JLW, regarding the different editions in the symphonies. It's a wonder that in his three masses, there are not other editions in those. But are there?

Not to my knowledge - but they are earlier works (by about ten years - apart from the Te Deum) than the Symphonies and were also held in higher regard by Bruckner's contemporaries (Brahms, for example, thought the F minor Mass setting an astonishing work, but was dismissive of the Symphonies). Perhaps the words helped Bruckner feel greater security about how the Music should "go" - or, more likely, the wider Tonal language he developed in his Symphonies revealed greater choices and opportunities that the Music could take, each having its own strengths and virtues in spite of/because of being so different?

[Roehre]

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...).

Apart from the orchestration especially the scherzos need to be compared to undertand the development Bruckner went through as symphonist: the studgy, irregularly paced "Linz" (1866 and 1877) scherzo versus the completely regularly "3 in a bar - 8 bars a phrase" of the "Wiener Fassung".
The latter definitely made regular following Bruckner's obsession to count everything -including the leaves of a tree- and mark it. The score (both the complete mvts and the sketches/score pages of the finale) of the Ninth is toe-curling in that respect, and 1 "Wien" suffers similarly.

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".

The Carraghan version is in so far to be disputed as it was NOT Bruckner's intention to publish it in that way, contrary to all other versions of all other symphonies, as it was completed but literally immediately revised, giving the score on which Carraghan's version is based "only" the status of a draft orchestral score, in the same sense as Mahler 9, LvdE and especially Adagio 10 scores in Mahler's hand (neither of these therefore in definitive Mahlerian versions).
Nevertheless I think this pre-first version of the "Pausensinfonie" is an intriguing work. Not only because of the scherzo in 2nd place (cf. Bruckner's Quintet !), but also of e.g. the full and elaborated violin solo which only is to be found in this pre-first and the "first" version (1872) of the Symphony. Plus: in both scores the flow of the music not (yet) cut up in clearly defined architectural passages by general pauses (by which Bruckner replied to the critics calling the work structurally confuse, and hence the nickname "Pausensinfonie")
But as an example that the Brucknerian 2nd version of 1877 (Nowak) works perfectly too, Giulini is the man to demonstrate that. Nowak II/2 only sticks to the cuts which Bruckner himself made, II/1 is Bruckner's first version, as intended for publication. The rules for the Bruckner GesamtAusgabe are strict in that sense. Haas' 2nd is (as usual with his editions) simply corrupt.

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!

There are FOUR adagios for the third: between the 1873 and the 1877 versions Bruckner revised the slow movement separately in 1876 (recorded by Tintner, premiered by Abbado in 1980). Another difference between the 1873 and the 1889 versions is the coda for the scherzo. Originally it was not published as part of the scherzo in the 1877 version either, but Nowak added the coda based on a intermediary score for 1877 in which Bruckner wrote that the scherzo was to be kept the way it was (1873, with the coda therefore).
Haitink's VPO 3rd (1877 version, Nowak III/2) was the first recording including this scherzo-cum-coda.
1889 (Nowak III/3) is just a cut-down, mishandled, architecturally misshaped and therefore misunderstood version which IMO should be banned for ever.

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).

There are four finales, each IMO structurally and musically sound works, but I don't believe the original 1874 scherzo is inferior. The structure of the story as told by Bruckner in the whole of the 1874 (Nowak IV/1) symphony is different, but not inferior to the later ones. It falls in the same category as his change of mind regarding the solemn cello-based funeral-march-like episodes in the 2nd mvt, quite long and intruiging in 1874, cut, and losing its gravity in 1878/1880.
This 1874 cello-episoded slow mvt followed by the 1874 scherzo would be fully misplaced against the Folksfest-finale which concludes the 1878/1880 versions. Hence the new hunting scherzo which is better balanced between the folksiness of the new finale and the diminished gravity of the cut slow mvt.
One might say that 1878/'80 is an "uplifted" version of 1874
It is not by chance this is the only symphony which Bruckner publicly gave a nickname: "Romantic"

[Richard Tarleton]

Thanks Roehre, my head is now spinning

I referred above to a post from you a while ago now which I think listed all the versions of everything!

[Petrushka]

Richard's isn't the only head spinning! Given all this confusion and complication it's a wonder that Bruckner's symphonies are heard at all.

[Roehre]

Thanks Roehre, my head is now spinning

I referred above to a post from you a while ago now which I think listed all the versions of everything!

Richard, I'm afraid I haven't kept a copy of that postin myself - at least i cannot find it

[PJPJ]

William Carragan has a new website with a wealth of matters Bruckner...

http://carragan.com/

[P. G. Tipps]

William Carragan has a new website with a wealth of matters Bruckner...

http://carragan.com/

Thanks for the pointer, PJPJ!

I also recently came across this website featuring a guy who has just spent 144 days listening to various recordings of the Bruckner symphonies and has decided to currently embark on another 63 it seems ...

http://www.144dayswithbrucknerandme.com/2017/02/23/day-144-symphony-no-9-in-d-minor-wand/

Suddenly one's own fanatical enthusiasm for this music would appear to pale to almost complete disdain in comparison ...

[Daniel]

Just listening to an off air recording of Bruckner 8 with Thielemann and the Berlin Philharmonic, not one of the nimblest, the weighty building bricks come clad in BPO velvet and there's sth of the behemoth about it, but it's very involving indeed.

For all its stark changes and dark moments, Bruckner's music always strikes me as emotionally pretty secure. It never feels as if it might completely go off the rails, in the way Mahler, Sibelius, Beethoven* can threaten to do.
I always wondered why Sibelius music seemed less conservative to me than say that of Nielsen, whose harmonic language could be said to be more 'modern'. I think part of the answer is in the manifestation of emotion in Sibelius, at times it borders on extremities of disorientation and detachment from a secure centre, its only purpose at times seems to be to wtiness its own hopelessness. Mahler too seems ready at many moments to combust in irreconcilability, and there's a dangerous energy in Beethoven that sails in perilous waters, or exists in a cloud that threatens to drift away entirely in the later works.

Underlying Bruckner (in my head) is this kind of emotional four part chorale keeping it centred wherever its harmonic and structural oddities stray. A kind of potent combination of belief and uncertainty producing miraculous musical results.

Anyway just some personal and and entirely unscientific impressions.

*To name only them, Shostakovich, Vivaldi and plenty of others waiting on the subs bench.

[Richard Barrett]

Daniel, you're on excellent form today. I would extend your Bruckner comments by saying that even his "emotional four-part chorale" begins to break down in his 9th symphony, at least in the three completed movements, and that this is maybe one way to characterise the "unfinishability" of the work - it's assumed that the final movement would find its way back to the kind of affirmation you're talking about, and this seems to be the case in the extant parts of it, but this would somehow involve a pulling back from the brink which would make what is a quite visionary work look a lot more conservative. What you say about Sibelius interests me too, I must try to hear for myself what you're talking about, because (in my relative ignorance it must be said) I think of his music as very "grounded" indeed.