Tackling a serious gap in my musical knowledge

[Nick Armstrong]

Pay no attention to my comment about #1 - I was just being a smart-arse, but it doesn't stand out in here

Perfect camouflage!

[Ariosto]

VodkaDilc

Don't worry about any serious gaps, you can always become a conductor!!

[Pianorak]

Another Bruckner novice.

Just dug up this LP, I may or may not have listened to before: Bruckner: Sinfonie Nr. 4 Es-dur "Romantische" (Fassung 1878/80)
Concertgebouw-Orchester Amsterdam Bernard Haitink. (Philips 6833 029)

No idea why it's in German - but never mind. The really important question: Am I supposed to like the work? Am I supposed to like this performance? Am I supposed to like this particular version? Am I supposed to - er, whatever?

[teamsaint]

Another Bruckner novice.

Just dug up this LP, I may or may not have listened to before: Bruckner: Sinfonie Nr. 4 Es-dur "Romantische" (Fassung 1878/80)
Concertgebouw-Orchester Amsterdam Bernard Haitink. (Philips 6833 029)

No idea why it's in German - but never mind. The really important question: Am I supposed to like the work? Am I supposed to like this performance? Am I supposed to like this particular version? Am I supposed to - er, whatever?

I ask a lot of advice on this board,what's good, ways into things etc, but then after taking the excellent(hopefully ) advice, we should just trust our own judgement.
I tend to like a thing until I find something better.....makes life straightforward !
(and at my stage of experiencing Bruckner it's all good and mostly new, so what's not to enjoy ?)
Nothing wrong with a a maverick view, in any case, if that's what you have !!
(and that Haitink Bruckner 4 is probably brilliant !!Bet mr Haitink thought so, and if its good enough for him....)

[Roehre]

Another Bruckner novice.

Just dug up this LP, I may or may not have listened to before: Bruckner: Sinfonie Nr. 4 Es-dur "Romantische" (Fassung 1878/80)
Concertgebouw-Orchester Amsterdam Bernard Haitink. (Philips 6833 029)

No idea why it's in German - but never mind.

It's the Dutch pressing, produced by Phonogram in Baarn, meant for the German market.
Where did you buy that record ? Has it got a whitish sleeve or is the front a forestscape painting?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The really important question: Am I supposed to like the work? Am I supposed to like this performance? Am I supposed to like this particular version? Am I supposed to - er, whatever?

Put it on.

Listen.

Do you like it?

No further questions necessary.

[Pianorak]

It's the Dutch pressing, produced by Phonogram in Baarn, meant for the German market.
Where did you buy that record ? Has it got a whitish sleeve or is the front a forestscape painting?

Roehre: Sorry, cannot remember where I got it. The front does have a forestscape painting.

teamsaint & ferneyhoughgeliebte: Sorry, enquiry was slightly tongue-in-cheek.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

teamsaint & ferneyhoughgeliebte: Sorry, enquiry was slightly tongue-in-cheek.

As was answer!

[cloughie]

It doesn't; it's merely the form in which it's been presented to listeners who have as a consequence had to suffer by being short-changed, until recently; yes, of course it's the way that most of us have listened to it, but that's because most of the work that's been done on the finale has been accomplished over the pst 30 years or so and even that has not taken off in the way that one might have expected it to do in terms of a refreshed performance tradition, but I suspect that the BPO / Rattle performances and recording will at last be changing all that.


That's untrue; whilst for a long time it was thought that there was very little material for the final written down by the composer, various discoveries have revealed that he wrote down a lot of it, some of it fully orchestrated - and there can be little if any doubt that Bruckner had composed the entire movement in his head. Do you avoid listening to Bartók's Viola Concerto because its last few pages were written down by Tibor Serly?


Not so separate as you suggest; it's a different issue, to but the point of commonality is in the question of "the composer's final (completed) thoughts" to which you yourself referred. Who is to say when a composer has his/her "final" thoughts? if the composer can't answer that question, I do not see how you could! Bruckner's is a singular case in point because of the sheer extent of revision that he was persuaded to make to most of his symphonies; Jayne mentioned the sad fact that he never heard his Fifth Symphony and that sadness is compounded by the fact that it was subjected to less post-completion tinkering than any of the others (apart from the Ninth itself).

I think that the questions that you raise (by implication) are twofold; firstly, should anyone ever try to complete a work left incomplete by another composer and, secondly, should anyone listen to such completions?


Then your reaction is a rare one indeed; many musicians, even Elgar specialists, have listened to that work and been unable to detect just by listening which is which (or rather who is who); indeed, even Andrew Davis, who conducted its première and the first of its several recordings, fell into that trap. This alone serves to illustrate just how fine a job Anthony Payne did on the work. Elgar must have known that someone might have a crack at it one day; it's perhaps a wonder that so much time elapsed before anyone did, however, but the fact that it's now generally spoken of as "Elgar's Third Symphony" says it all, really. I don't reagrd it in the same way as Elgar's first two symphonies, which are indeed magnificent - but for the very different reason that Elgar had moved on by the time he came to work on it. Its arresting opening (which we have fully scored in the composer's hand) sounds almost more like Havergal Brian than the Elgar that we know best (and I've sometimes wondered whether Brian, who'd known Elgar for almot 30 years at the time Elgar began the work, might have offered a few words of enthusiastic encouragement to Elgar - he'd just completed his own Third Symphony at that point). Elgar's second symphony followed his first fairly closely, but the third is separate in time from its immediate predecessor by more than two decades in which all manner of devastating things had happened in the lives of everyone, not least Elgar himself.

There may be clever, clairvoyants on these boards, and with greater musical knowledge than I have but to claim that completed Elgar 3, Bruckner 9 and Mahler 10 are more than second-guesses at what they thought the completions would be, is sheer arrogance. Listen and enjoy by all means but don't make too many presumptions.

[teamsaint]

Roehre: Sorry, cannot remember where I got it. The front does have a forestscape painting.

teamsaint & ferneyhoughgeliebte: Sorry, enquiry was slightly tongue-in-cheek.

Its a fair cop !
But making our own judgements on what we see and hear, not believing what we are told, (and not just in music,) is more important now than ever.
We are easily manipulated !

[jayne lee wilson]

Thanks for all the advice, some conflicting, but heading in roughly the same direction.

I went shopping this morning and have come back with Böhm 4 and Tintner 1. Nothing like the immediacy of good shops on the high street! I'm not sure which of the two I'll listen to first - and I certainly won't be hurrying to record my impressions, since I imagine repeated listening over a period is necessary.

All your expertise is proving most valuable.

(What's all this about the original version of No 1? Is that not the one usually played?)

Home late, sorry if this has been covered, Vodka - the "original version" of No.1 from 1866 is known as the "Linz", and it is the best in every way. The later "Vienna" version of 1890 made extensive changes to the orchestration (it can sound, texturally, more like late Bruckner), and taming the wonderful rhythmic and phrasing irregularities of the original (this was because he was always - wrongly - far too sensitive to friends' and conductors' criticism). It's worth the odd (very odd) listen... there are in fact slight differences between the true 1866 original and the more usually played 1877 text, but that's for another day!

You're lucky to have good shops nearby! Great first choices, do hope you'll follow up later with No.2 - in that case, the Naxos/Tintner is the only extant recording of the "urtext", whatever misleading booklet notes might say elsewhere... and it is a truly wonderful reading in lovely sound. The slow movement of No.2 is one of Bruckner's most beautiful and lovable creations.

Bon Voyage!

[Pianorak]

. . . Where did you buy that record ? . . .

Roehre:Rifling through my LPs I have just come across a couple of Hildegard Knef records which I must have bought during my last trip to Germany in 1997. Seems more than likely that the Bruckner was acquired at the same time.

[Lateralthinking1]

Alan Bush was a very uneven composer whose powers waned in his final years, so you'd need to tread carefully, but there are real treasures in his output; Dialectic for string quartet, Concert Piece for cello and piano (later renamed Concert Duo), the piano concerto and violin concerto, Voices of the Prophets, all the symphonies (especially the third), the first piano sonata, 24 Preludes for piano...

Thank you for the recommendations ahinton. Very thoughtful and helpful. I will go to them next.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

You're lucky to have good shops nearby! Great first choices, do hope you'll follow up later with No.2 - in that case, the Naxos/Tintner is the only extant recording of the "urtext", whatever misleading booklet notes might say elsewhere... and it is a truly wonderful reading in lovely sound. The slow movement of No.2 is one of Bruckner's most beautiful and lovable creations.

and Tintner shows how every bar "tells".

[Petrushka]

I really do think that Bruckner's time has come. I know that his music has been growing in ever increasing popularity over the decades but there suddenly seem to be an explosion of performances in a way I can't remember having witnessed before.

My entry into Bruckner's world back in 1974 came via the 1944 Furtwangler 8th and 1951 Furtwangler 4th. I would advise starting with the 4th and the VPO/Bohm recording is a great entry point. The only one of the symphonies that I really struggle with is the 2nd. For some unknown reason I just can't get into it. I have 5 recordings so I'll keep on trying...