Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra – Jerzy Maksymiuk, Conductor
Recorded 1975 – Katowice, Poland in co-production with Polish Radio & TV
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ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
If you want a great definition of classical music’s Romantic period – pop this baby in your dusty old CD player.
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NO LINER NOTES (BUT HERE’S SOME INFO ABOUT CHOPIN AND THE PIANO CONCERTOS):
FREDERIC CHOPIN (1810 – 1849)
Frédéric François Chopin(born March 1, 1810 –October 17, 1949) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading composer of his era whose “poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation.”
Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola and grew up in Warsaw, which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland.
A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed his early works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at age 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising; at 21, he settled in Paris.
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1 IN E MINOR, OP. 11
The Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, is a piano concerto written by Frédéric Chopin in 1830, when he was twenty years old. It was first performed on October 12 of that year, at the Teatr Narodowy (the National Theatre) in Warsaw, Poland, with the composer as soloist, during one of his “farewell” concerts before leaving Poland.
It was the first of Chopin’s two piano concertos to be published, and was therefore given the designation of Piano Concerto ‘No. 1’ at the time of publication, even though it was actually written immediately after the premiere of what was later published as Piano Concerto No. 2.
Garrick Ohlsson
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 IN F MINOR, OP. 21
The Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21, is a piano concerto composed by Frédéric Chopin in fall 1829. Chopin composed the piece before he had finished his formal education, at around 20 years of age.
It was first performed on March 17, 1830, in Warsaw, Poland, with the composer as soloist. It was the second of his piano concertos to be published (after the Piano Concerto No. 1), and so was designated as ‘No. 2,’ even though it was written first.
From May 2024, a score from the collection of the National Library of Poland, where a piano part is in Chopin’s own hand, is presented at a permanent exhibition in the Palace of the Commonwealth.
Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra
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TRACK LISTING :
Frederic Chopin (1810 – 1849)
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1 IN E MINOR, OP. 11
i. Allegro maestoso risoluto [19:58]
II. Romance (Larghetto) [9:56]
III. Rondo (Vivace)
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 IN F MINOR, OP. 21
I. Maestoso [13:53]
II. Larghetto [9:30]
III. Allegro vivace [8:18]
FINAL THOUGHT:
Beautiful performance by International Chopin Contest winner Garrick Ohlsson (in 19709) and the Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra proving Chopin a gifted writer of the Piano Concerto form, but I’m glad he stopped at two so he could devote the rest of his time to all that glorious solo music.
Dude Cavalli was a big deal in 17th Century Venice and he’s a still a big deal today (in a few – very small – music circles).
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NO LINER NOTES (BUT HERE’S SOME INFO ABOUT CAVALLI & LA CALISTO)
Francesco CavalliFrancesco Cavalli (born Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni; (1602-76) was a Venetian composer, organiist and singer of the early Baroque period. He succedded his teacher Claudio Monteverdi as the dominant and leading opera composer of the mid-17th century. A central figure of Venetian musical life, Cavalli wrote more than thirty operas, almost all of whic premiered in the city’s theaters. His best known works include Omindo (1644), Giasone (1649) and La Calisto (1651).
La Calisto
La Calisto is an Italian opera by Francesco Cavalli from a libretto by Giovanni Faustini based on the mythological story of Calisto.
The opera received its first performance on November 28, 1951 at the Teatro Sant’Apollinare, Venice, where it drea limited audiences for its run of eleven performances. In the 20th centire it was successfully revived.
Libretto
The libretto was published in 1651 by Giuliani and Batti. The story combines two myths: Jupiter’s seduction of Calisto, and Diana’s adventure with Endymion. The plot is somewhat formulaic: Jane Glover has commented on how the librettist had to invent complications to meet audience expections in the context of Venetian opera.
All Sounds Programmed And Performed On The GDS / Synergy Synthesizers by Wendy Carlos
For The LSI Technology, This Album Is Dedicated To NASA
Produced by Wendy Carlos, 1984
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ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
One of the great early CDs – perfect for the ‘new’ digital format (compact disc) – amazing with headphones and lights out.
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ORIGINAL LINER NOTES by Wendy Carlos
THE SOUNDS
I love the orchestra. In fact, when I switched from physics to music as my major in college, the opportunity to work with and write for orchestra was no small motivation.
When it appeared that the new field of electronic music could give a composer all of the resources of an orchestra and more in a room-sized studio, I jumped at it and enrolled in graduate school of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, then (1962) the only such facility in the United States.
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center
The crude means of the classic electronic studio of that time, with a splice or two for each note of taped music could produce magical and dramatic musical effects and textures, but they were certainly no substitue for an orchestra.
When I met Bob Moog in the early 1960s and began to work with his synthesizers, then at least I could interpret music with real performance values, as I attempted to prove with my ‘Switched On’ recordings. Indeed, electronic music had become real music at last ! For a while I thought that we were getting close to the ‘orchestra in a box.’
Bob Moog
However, it did not take long for me to learn that this common belief was really a misconception. By 1968, when I was finishing my second album (The Well-Tempered Synthesizer), I had already discovered that the ‘infinite possibilities’ of the synthesizer were actually very narrow – to the point of boredom, if one were honest about it. It was all too easy to sound thick and turgid, even with only two or three tracks of this presumably wonderful new sound.
Somehow the sounds of the older acoustic instruments were still much better. I began to understand that it was the utter simplicity of the synthesizer’s sounds that was their downfall. Acoustic instruments evolved over the ages to satisfy the human desire for subtly complex sounds. The synthesizer, as it evolved over only a few decades, produced sounds that were neither subtle nor complex and became boring with repetition, once the novelty wore off.
Wendy Carlos’ Studio 1968
Even the most refined of today’s analog synthesizers generate timbres that are far removed from physical reality, with their pure sine, sawtooth and square waves, plus a bit of filtering and modulation – all very easy to describe in words or pictures or numbers. Just try to describe the waveshapes from a (well-played) violin, horn or timpani!
Technology now exists that can digitally sample or record a few notes of rich acoustic sources and then play them back from a keyboard (at different speeds to produce other pitches) like the old Mellotron. While this does have its usefulness, a few minutes spent with one of these machines will show you the limitations of the Xerox copy approach, if subtlety or flexibility is desired.
Mellotron
Even many of the wonderful new digital synthesizers made available over the past few years in a variety of forms, including a lot of bells and whistles and special convenience features, are still unable to control sounds much past the simple stage of the original modular Moog machines. The basic design of each presupposes this or that kind of sound variation to be ‘unimportant’ or “‘naudible,’ thus limiting the possibility of control.
Finally, what I consider to be the prime departure from the previous limitations was developed a few years ago by Hal Alles at Bell Labs. He modestly avoided making sweeping simplifications in his designs, which evolved to be open-ended enough, yet controllable, to permit subtle complexities in sounds akin to the best acoustic instruments. His series of prototypes eventually resulted in the GDSand Synergydigital synthesizers from Digital Keyboards. Their first task was to assemble a user-friendly software and control package for the Alles generator card.
The next step, which I undertook in 1982, was building a library of voices (nearly 500 by now, many were also made available on cartridges from Digital Keyboards) replicating as closely as possible the features of acoustic instruments. Album notes are not the place to describe the complexities of the several hundred details that must be programmed for each note of each instrument with various dynamic levels and performing methods. It is intimidating, yet ultimately fascinating. I recommend the exercise to any of you with a love of sound and some background in acoustics and computers. Expect it to take some years, but I promise you will learn a lot!
Wendy Carlos – 1980s
The results may not be perfect; mine are perhaps only something like 70-95% successful as replicas that sound just the way those ‘real’ instruments do. (I like that term: ‘replicas.’) But perform and record several dozen of these replicas together in an ensemble and you can produce what this recording demonstrates: the world’s first digitally synthesized orchestra, thanks to the miracles of LSI technology (‘Large Scale Integration’ circuits, i.e., computer chips).
All sounds on this recording were digitally synthesized and fine-tuned by ear. No digital sampling techniques were employed. No microphones were used at any stage, thus eliminating one of the weakest links in audio. It was not necessary to disguise sounds with a lot of echo and phasing to hide their inadequacies.
With digital delay and time processing, it was possible to achieve a balance between natural room-sound ambience and three dimensional stereo placement, resulting in an uncanny sense of ‘scrim free’ orchestral transparency on the digitally mastered recording.
Wendy Carlos
But why do all this? Do we now have the ‘orchestra in a box’? Not really, considering the time and effort required to produce an orchestral recording in this manner. Rather we should consider the reality of replication as only a measure of the quality of the synthesis, not as the ultimate goal. The goal ought to be providing the base on which to build new sounds with orchestral qualities that have not been heard before but are equally satisfying to the ear.
This album represents my attempt to provide that base; look for the next steps using the experimental hybrid and imaginary sounds which have grown out of this work.
So the LSI Philharmonic is born. This recording celebrates itself within the bounds of the initial library of orchestral replicas I created. I present it to you as my encomium to the orchestra. After all, imitation is a high form of flattery. (But in most ways I still prefer the original.)
THE MUSIC
I have long had an idea as to the reason there is so small an audience for serious contemporary music. As Tom Wolfe pointed out in ‘From Bauhaus To Our House,’ since about World War 1, architects (and fine artists, too) have become more afraid of appearing ‘bourgeois’ from wanting to give delight to their audience. In so doing they have moved in smaller and smaller concentric circles until all stand on the same square inch of safely non-bourgeois style.
I believe this applies as much to modern music as to the other arts. So, is it any wonder that the audience at large has fled to the decidedly more human pop culture? My hunch is that they don’t hate music that is ‘modern,’ only music that is ‘boring’!
Consiering that the music composed for this album is no less important to me than the sounds. Written as for orchestra, it is based on astronomical subjects.
‘COSMOLOGICAL IMPRESSSIONS’ is a suite of three movements. The first ‘Genisis’ portrays a wide-angle view of the universe. Sounds grow out of the void and crystalize into a high fifth in bassoons and cellos. This builds slowly and deliberately with increasing complexity into a ‘dawn of life’ theme over swirling impressionistic arpeggios. trumpet and then pipe organ join in crescendo at the broad climax followed by a reposeful ending.
‘Eden,’ the second movement, is a peaceful combination of diatonic tune over simple harmonic chaconne. Three main themes and three sub-themes are woven into a continuous contrapuntal fabric in moderate 3/4 meter to depict the straightforward elegance of the legendary garden.
The distances between galaxies are incomprehensibly vast, unbearably lonely in the third movement, ‘IC’ (for ‘Intergalactic Communications’), we try a radio signal ‘Hello, we exist!’ Not wanting to appear to square or dull, we probably avoid 4/4 and choose something more subtle, like the intricate 13/8 used here. An allegro theme is repeated over and over, first in bassoon, then clarinet. Above it floats the melancholy adagio counter-theme in violins and horns as the message continues over lightyears and parsecs, until eternity meets infinity…
‘MOONSCAPES’ is a nine movement suite, a larger work in the spirit of Holst’s ‘The Planets.’ The topic here is the major moons of the solar system for which we have at last, thanks to NASA, real images of real worlds, each with its own personality. (Appropriate, these are images reconstructed by computer from digital information!) Working outwards from the sun, we encounter:
‘Luna,’ for Earth’s moon, the most familiar one in the solar system, is the longest movement. From traditional associations with ‘love’ and ‘lunacy,’ it takes the form of a concerto for schizophrenic soloist. Two main themes, one dramatic, the other romantic; alternate between soloist and orchestra. The solo begins as a violin, becomes a violoncello, and then nervously retreats to become a trumpet, a clarinet and a bass clarinet, before returning as a violin just in time for a variation on the romantic theme. All five personalities alternate freely through the cheery coda. There a sixth personality, combining violin timbre with the percussive envelope of a piano, is momentarliy disclosed. (This is the only sound on the record that cannot be made with a traditional orchestra!)
‘Phobos and Deimos’ are the two tiny moons of Mars. They move the fastest and are probably the least attractive moons in the system. Here they are given musical voice as a rondo / scherzo with two gnome-like themes tied together with three contrasting sub-themes. The first theme, for Phobos, is a sort of shouting match between horns and trombones. The second, for Deimos, is a dour dance. The harmonies explore stacked major thirds and stacked fifths.
‘Ganymede,’ the largest moon in the solar system (even bigger than Mercury), is one of Jupiter’s satellites. Its size and varied, attractive surface features suggested bouyant, happy and generous music, which brought to mind a jazz waltz. Three main and two seccondary themes contrapuntally weave in and out over a ten-bar chord progression, occasionally shortened to create asymetrical interest in both harmony and rhythm. Solos in horn, flute, alto sax and bassoon highlight the entrance of each new theme.
‘Europa,’ another of Jupiter’s moons, projects a slow impressionistic mood. Two angular themes float over an accompaniment that undulates in varying ostinati. The ending is hopeful; beneath the cracked-ice surface there may be life waiting to be thawed from its frozen prison as in Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘2010.’ (This is the only movement to employ processing. Subtle phasing was added to the string tracks.)
‘Io’ is a tempestuous scherzo, a perpetuum mobile, in keeping with Jupiter’s red-orange volcanic moon. The surface is constantly changing, yet appears the same, and the music bubbles along as a passacoglio with eleven varied repetitions. The relentless theme and harmony are built in fourths and major seconds.
‘Callisto,’ the last of Jupiter’s moons in the Suite, is a heavily cratered, desolate body. The music has a simple ABA form, with a sad, lyrical theme for each A, and a 5/4 ostinato in B over which nonsynchronous orchestral textures wax and wane. Harmonies are bitonal and quartal, the meter is frequently surprisingly complex despite the gentle nature of the melancholy mood.
‘Rhea,’ the second-largest moon of Saturn, is the briefest movement. It features clusters and tri-tonality, but at a more spirited tempo than usual for cluster-music, and a simple theme over the cluster harmonies. (The ‘electronic’ sound quality is totaly an artifact of the clusters used; the effect would sound nearly the same with acoustic instruments.) The meter is a compound 4 + 3/4 but the music flows gracefully and lightly over this with an uncomplicated sound not unlike the attractive appearance of the moon.
‘Titan,’Saturn’s largest moon (also larger than Mercury), has been thought likely to contain life. But Voyager’s photos revealed that the thick rust-colored, hydrocarbon-rich atmosphere that makes life possible totally obscures the surface. The music reflects this enigma. It is dark and brooding, with pre-dominant use of the low instruments, a tuba solo, soft bass drum and tom-tom. The adagio in 3/4 with constantly shifting downbeat sits on an unvarying pedal harmony of E-flat minor over A minor.
”Iapetus,’ the third largest of Saturn’s moons, has an appearance unique in the solar system. One side is nearly charcoal black, while the other is bright and reflective, although the surface itself is not particularly complex. This most contrasting movement of the Suite is composed with only two main themes, each of which takes on several moods and styles. The ending, with an extended coda, also exploresa quiet aleatoric impressionism, a fat tutti / recapitulation, and an unusual solo percussion toccato, which brings the Suite to an energetic conclusion. (For now anyway – NASA may yet bring us images of the moons of Uranus and Neptune…)
Wendy Carlos
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TRACK LISTING:
Wendy Carlos (1939 – )
COSMOLOGICAL IMPRESSIONS
Genesis [7:10]
Eden [4:25]
I.C. (Intergalactic Communications) [3:40]
MOONSCAPES
Luna [8:40]
Phobus and Deimos [2:45]
Ganymede [4:22]
Europa [4:15]
Io [4:28]
Callisto [4:28]
Rhea [1:50]
Titan [3:43]
Iapetus [5:48]
No video of a performance of ‘Digital Moonscapes’ – so here is a short documentary about Wendy Carlos.
FINAL THOUGHT:
A groundbreaking electronic soundscape from the 1980s that holds up as music and not something to be filed away in a music museum. Plus, the liner notes are basically Carlos reviewing herself and giving herself the highest of marks!
I bet very few (if any) Classical Music bloggers are reviewing this piece – I don’t know why – it’s awesome if you’re pulling an all nighter and the sun is about to rise! (Sorry, not actually one sentence – but I used dashes to make it look like it.)
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ORIGINAL LINER NOTES by Klaus Schoning (English translation by John Patrick Thomas and W. Richard Rieves)
John Cage, who died in New York on August 12, 1992 just short of his 80th birthday, stands as one of the greatest and most pioneering artists of the 20th Century.
In addition to his musical works and closely tied to them is a body of extensive poetic philosophical work which he published successively in his books Silence (1961), A Year From Monday (1968), M (1970), Writings Through ‘Finnegans Wake’ (1978, together with Alison Knowles), Empty Words (1979), Themes & Variations (1982), Roaratorio, An Irish Circus on ‘Finnegans Wake (1982), Laus Schoning, editor), X (1982), and the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures (1988).
Many of these poetic texts were written to be read aloud, an oral literature, which John Cage with his extraordinary voice often recited himself. A kind of sound poetry whose character may be recognized in the variety of pitches and inflections, of movement and rest, of tempi and rhythms, of breathing and silence. As John Cage put it: Poetry is ambiguous, it lets musical elements such as time and sound enter the world of words.
A productive and continuous collaboration between John Cage, the poet, and the medium of radio developed from the end of the 1970s when the Studio Acoustic Art at the WDR in Cologne invited Cate to realize a large number of his poetic works as radio pieces and sound compositions thereby making them available to a wider public.
The results works are: Roaratorio, An Irish Circus on ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ (1979), James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie: An Alphabet (1982), Themes & Variations (1983), Muoyce (1984), HMCIEX (1984), Mushrooms et Variationes (1985), Diary (1) (1987), Writing Through The Essay ‘On The Duty of Civil Disobedience’ (1988), The First Meeting of the Satie Society (1987), Mirage Verbal, Writing through Marcel Duchamp, Notes (1989), Erik Satie: An Imaginary Conversation (1990), and h-WDR (1987).
In 1992 WERGO released on 8-part CD edition of John Cage reading his Diary: How To Improve The World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse).
Beginning in the 1940s, Cage was occupied with the epochal work of James Joyce, particularly with the hermetic and difficult ‘Finnegans Wake.’In 1942, Cage set a passage from the ‘Wake’ which he titled ‘The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs’ and in 1984 ‘Nowth upon Nacht’ in memory of Cathy Berberian.
In his radio piece, ‘An Alphabet,’Cage himself plays the role of James Joyce, speaking texts from ‘Finnegans Wake.’ In the 1970s and 80s, Cage composed his five ‘Writings through ‘Finnegans Wake,’ a kind of ‘writing through,’ as opposed to reading through, Joyce’s work using different literary methods.
The resulting five poetic texts were designed to be read aloud in the manner of oral, meditative poetry whose sense is contained in the sound: a kind of ‘soundsense’ as James Joyce once characterized ‘Finnegans Wake.’
With Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on ‘Finnegans Wake,’Cage realized a work which within months of its premiere in 1979 at the WDR in Cologne became an international sensation and must be ranked as one of the key works of Ars Acustica in the 20th century.
As an exceptional example of poetry for the radio, it was awarded the Karl Sczuko Prize in 1979 and was presented during the Donaueschigen Festival. The prize citation read, ‘Cage opens up on endlessly rich acoustic world, althought it is strongly rooted in literary and musical ideas. It is a world made up of sounds, text and music, one in which the listener is able at will to experience and at the same time be exposed to sounds which the normally one-dimensional medium of radio cannot customerily offer.’
In ‘Roaratorio,’Cage’s experiences with music and poetry, oral recitation and tape montage, and his close association with Zen Buddhism, lead to an all-inclusive cosmology built out of human voices, natural sounds, sounds coming out of the immediate environment, noises, singing, and music.
His ‘Writing for the Second Time Through ‘Finnegans Wake,’which consists of quotations from ‘Finnegans Wake,’forms the verbal component for ‘Roaratorio.’ The steadily repeated name of James Joyce forms the central axis for the mesostic text. John Cage recites this meditative oral poem himself. The beginning of the recording Cage made is presented on this WERGO CD.
For the composition of the music, a complex sound and noise ambience, the Joyce text was again diassembled. With the help of the ancient Chinese oracle book, the ‘I Ching,’Cage used chance operation to determine 2293 sounds depicting locations and noises that appear in ‘Finnegans Wake.’
Cage formed all this into a polyphonic collage. The montage is expanded by the inclusion of Irish ballads, jigs, and instrumental music which he recorded in Ireland. Cage considered this piece also as an opportunity to transpose works from the world of literature into an acoustical situation in which the language is accessible to all: ‘I think more and more we need a language which doesn’t require translation.’
Numerous radio stations in Europe, America, and Australia have broadcast this work which has become a classic of acoustical art. It has been presented by the WDR at international festivals as a live-performance with John Cage and Irish musicians. Merce Cunningham choreographed a ballet to ‘Roaratorio’for his Dance Comapny, which has been performed in Lille, London, Frankfurt, Avignon, and New York with great success.
Heinrich Vormweg on the presentation of the Karl Sczuka Prize to John Cage for ‘Roaratorio’at Donoueschingen in 1979: ‘Roaratorio’equates Joyce with Everyman, and it equates Everyman with every meaning and every sound, and it equates every sound, every note, every word with the one word, allowing all this to co-exist in a kind of universal music which – and this is the most surprising thing – gives one an overwhelming feeling of openness and hope. ‘Roaratorio’is one large tablet of contemporary cuneiform, full of clues and messaages yet undecipherable; it is an act of devotion and of laughter, an apotheosis of agreement with this world and at the same a vast utopian scheme, a radio challenge to a different life in this world. A scheme of equality and of peace attained with it. Here is art demonstrating a step into the future, into a future deserving of this name.’
Klaus Schoning (English translation by John Patrick Thomas and W. Richard Rieves)
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TRACK LISTING:
John Cage (1912-1992)
Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on ‘Finnegans Wake’ [60:09]
Writing for the Second Time Through ‘Finnegans Wake’ [14:14]
FINAL THOUGHT:
I mean, yeah, impressive work – but I wouldn’t want to hear it over and over on a loop.
Recorded In The Churck of St. Alban, Holburn, London – March 29, 30 – April 1, 1985
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ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
I bet very few (if any) Classical Music bloggers are reviewing this piece – I don’t know why – it’s awesome if you’re pulling an all nighter and the sun is about to rise! (Sorry, not actually one sentence – but I used dashes to make it look like it.)
Anton Bruckner
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ORIGINAL LINER NOTES by Robert Simpson
BRUCKNER – MASS IN E MINOR // LIBERA ME // ZWEI ACQUALE
Bruckner’s three mature masses, in D minor, E minor, and F minor,were written between 1864 and 1868, after his seven year period of grinding study with Simon Sechter, during which he composed very little. When he eventually plunged into composition again (he was no in his forties), he had consolidated his skills, and the D minorand F minor masses show a maturity based on the Austrian classical tradition.
The E minorstands apart; it uses a windband instead of the classical orchestra, and it is clearly influeneced by a study of early counterpoint, especially Palestrina’s. Of the three masses it is the ‘purest.’ It also looks to both past and future in a way the others do not.
At this time of his career Bruckner’s sense of movement in his large-scale music reflected the classical era; the masses in D minor and F minor (as well as a less characteristic earlier one in B flat) are modelled on the symphonic masses of Haydn and Mozart, with Beethoven and Schubert looking on.
Anton Bruckner – Statue – Vienna, Austria
Bruckner had not yet explored the vast, slow time-scale of his later symphonies. He had begun to discover Wagner, who found a way to create musical processes slow enough to accomodate stage drama, and he was to become the first and greatest composer to apply such a time-scale to purely instrumental music (this is the only respect in which Bruckner is a ‘Wagnerian’ compsoer).
But in their sense of movement the works of the eighteen-sexities, two symphonies (No. ‘0’ and No. 1)and the three great masses, do no more than hint at a new road, though they all have potent individuality.
The E minor mass of 1866 was revised in 1882, the version recorded here. Bruckner’s lifelong addiction to revision under pressure from his well-meaning but mistaken Wagnerian friends is one of the sadder stories of music, but the masses did not suffer seriously from it; although there are unauthentic scores, Bruckner’s own revisions are plainly advantageous.
Anton Bruckner
The E minor massreceived improvements that cannot be compared with the disastrous meddling inflicted by the distracted composer on its contemporary the First Symphony in 1890-91.
In his symphonies Bruckner had entered a world few people (and sometimes not even his own great mind housed in a naive personality) fully understood, while the masses could be related to familiar norms.
The revisions of detail in the E minor massdo not alter its nature, its fine balance between forward and backward views. Its concern with slow floating counterpoint, while it refers to Palestrina, yet anticipates the deliberation of to its companions in D minor and F minor, admirable though they are.
This can be felt at once in the opening Kyrie, largely unaccompanies except for the intermittent use of horns and trombones. Long suspensions and clear harmony create a sense of space. In the central section (Christe eleison) there is more movement, and a climax, then the Kyriereturns, this time to make its own climax before fading into vaulted heights.
The Gloriaand Credo, on the other hand, are essentially classical allegros with the contrasts of tempo and style dictated by the text. For the most part, Bruckner is revelling in the athletic energy familiar to his great predecessors Haydn and Beethoven, but with textures simpler and more spare anbd rhythms blunter and more naive.
Matthew Best
Both movements are in C major and contain central contrasts, the Gloriahaving a quiet secion on ‘Qui tollis peccata mundi’ with typical horn phrases, and the Credoa simple but profound treatment of ‘Et incaratus est’and ‘Crucifixus,’a stream of perfectly formed, dignified melody of great beauty.
The Gloriaends with a short but trenchant chromatic fugato on ‘Amen,’and the Credo(whose main theme anticipates strikingly the sturdy power of the scherzo of the Eighth Symphonyof more than twenty years later) reaches its apex in a broad and mighty cadence.
It is the Sanctusthat Palestrina’s influence (in the form of a quotation from the Missa brevis of 1570) is clearest. A two-part canon is enveloped in eight-party counterpoint as a great crescendo is built. The whole movement lasts only a few minutes but has a power of suggestion out of all proportion to its dimensions; such a slow crescendo as this beings some of Bruckner’s greatest symphonic movements, and the tribue to Palestrina is also a glance to the future, not only Bruckner’s own, but to such things as the magnificent opening pages of Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony.
The gentle and subtle Benedictusis in full sonata form, its development deeply modulated and its coda a bright burst on ‘Hosanna in excelsis.’The final Agnus Deidelivers the customary threefold prayer, each time as a crescendo, the last quietened to make way for teh hushed ‘Dona nobis pacem,’ perhaps the most beautiful music in the whole work, which is without doubt the deepest and most concentrated of Bruckner’s masses.
LIBERA ME
The fine motet, Libera me, for choir with three trombones, was written in 1854. Although this was before his lon gperiod of study with Sechter, Bruckner was no beginner; he was thirty, with plenty of experience of church music behind him, and the story that he did not become a proper composer until he was forty is a myth.
As early as 1849 he had produced a beutiful and individual little Requiemthat ought to be better know than it is, and his talents had already been recognized in his own environment.
This Libera me is simple and clear; it contains no elaborate counterpoint, but its part-writing is excellent, as is the calculation of sonorities. It has the solemn dignity befitting a funeral piece, and its middle section expresses the fear of judgment with considerable power and economy.
ROBERT SIMPSON
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English Chamber Orchestra
TRACK LISTING:
Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) – Mass in E Minor, etc.
Aequalis No. 1 [1:50]
Libera me [9:04]
Aequalis No. 2 [1:55]
Mass in E Minor
4. Kyrie [7:45]
5. Gloria [6:32]
6. Credo [10:34]
7. Sanctus [3:32]
8. Benedictus [6:27]
9. Agnus Dei [5:45]
FINAL THOUGHT:
This piece holds a special place in my heart. It’s from the 1980s and I was staying up late trying to finish a writing piece and this one popped through my 5 CD CHANGER and hit right around sunrise as I was completing my piece. The timing was perfect and I’ll never hate this disc (or really criticize it).
You gotta love Bruno Walter: “Brass, play as loud as you can – and THEN PLAY LOUDER!” – love it!
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES by Uwe Kraemer
BRUCKNER – SYMPHONY NO. 9 IN D MINOR
Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) considered himself Beethoven’s successor in the realm of the symphony, and there are those who feel that he was justified.
These protagonists of Bruckner’s music point out his expansion of the symphonic form, his intensification of a poetic idea, and the grandeur and nobility of his musical speech. But there are others – and they are equally articulate – who feel that Bruckner’s gradeur is only bombast, his poetry only overwritten prose, his expansive style and form only so much pomposity.
Anton Bruckner
And so, the battle over Bruckner has been waged for many years – and for that matter is being waged – making him one of the most provocative figures in music.
Born in a the small Austrian town of Ansfelden, Bruckner spent most of his life in his native country. For a while he taught music at the St. Florian secular music school, which he had formerly attended as a pupil; it was in this post that, in 1849, he wrote his first talented work, a Requiem.
In 1853, he settled in Vienna, with whose musical life he was henceforth to be intimately associated. For a while he served as a choral director; then, in 1868, he was appointed Professor at the Vienna Conservatory, filling this position with great honor for many years.
Meanwhile, he heard Wagner’s Tannhauser, an experience that overwhelmed him and henceforth made him a passionate disciple of the master. Wagnerian influences are frequently in evidence in his music, while his Third Symphony is openly dedicated to Wagner.
The controversy over Bruckner’s music began early – indeed, with the very first performances of his first symphonies. One of the officials at the Conservatory, studying his early manuscripts, advised him to throw his symphonies in a trash basket. The first performance of the Third Symphony was an outright fiasco. The critics were savage in their denunciation; and famous musicians, among them Brahms, were undisguisedly hostile to him.
Toward the close of his life, Bruckner found a certain measure of recognition and appreciation. Performances of his later symphonies by Nikisch, Hans Richter, Mottl, Hermann Levi, and Karl Muck were comparatively successful.
In 1891 Bruckner received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Vienna and a few years later the Empereor presented him with a stipend and a decoration. His seventieth birthday was the occasion for a nationwide celebration. However – despite the increasing favor – Bruckner still had his hostile critics. And, after his death in 1896, his symphonies still continued to arouse controversy outside of Austria.
Of all his symphonies, Bruckner’s Ninth suffered most, perhaps from editing. Bruckner died without completing it, and Ferdinand Loewe had a free hand in revision. He went at it with a will, and it was not until 1934 and the publication of the original manuscript that the real stature of this symphony, Bruckner’s last will and testament, was revealed.
The composer had struggled with his gigantic Eighth Symphony for six years and had begun the Ninthwhile the Eighthas being revised, working on it from September 21, 1887, until the day of his death, October 11, 1896.
Brucknerites tend to rejoince that the Ninthwas never finished, contending that the great Adagiois a farewell to life and that anything following it would be anticlimactic. Nonethless, Bruckner wrestled with a finale for two years and finished the greater part of it in full score.
But he was haunted by the fear that he would not have time to complete the symphony. The physician who attended him in his final illness (in the luxury of the Belvedere Palace, where the Emperor had belatedly granted him an apartment) once discovered him on his knees praying ‘Dear God, let me get well soon. You see, I need my health to finish the Ninth.’
The Symphony is indeed dedicated to ‘Dear God’ (‘Dem lieben Gott’).
TRACK LISTING:
Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) – Symphony No. 9 in D Minor
Feierlich (misterioso) [23:53]
Scherzo (bewegt lebhaft) [ 11:32]
Sehr langsam (feierlich) [23:17]
FINAL THOUGHT:
I don’t want to say it’s the definiitive performance – but damn – it’s pretty close. Bruckner seemed to hate strings and love brass – and Bruno Walter is a brother in arms. Considering so many people hated the symphony (and Bruckner) – I must disagree. I think this is awesome.
Boom! A great recording from the Soviet era, this one tees up Mahler nicely
Anton Bruckner – Statue – Vienna, Austria
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES by Soviet Archivist (translated by Someone Who Didn’t Know Russian Very Well)
BRUCKNER – SYMPHONY NO. 9 IN D MINOR
Born in St. Petersburg on June 4, 1903 and died in Leningrad on January 20, 1988, Yevgeny Mravinsky is one of the greatst musicians Russia has produced in the last century.
Yevgeny Mravinsky
He completed his training at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire. His teachers were Sherbachov, Gauk and Malko until 1931. At the same time, Mravinsky occupied the post of pianist at the ballet school in his home city.
After being appointed conductor at the Kirov Theatre Orchestra, the Russian artist, as a prize in the national competition, was awarded the post of principal conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra in 1938.
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
Thanks to the hard work and the artistry of Mravinsky, the Symphony Group become one of the best in the world.
His love for the music of his contemporary colleagues prompted him to concentrate his repertoire on composers such as Tchaikovsky and, in particular, Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, many of whose works Mravinsky premiered.
Yevgeny Mravinsky
This recording gives us the opportunity to listen to Mravsinky interpreting the music of a composer not considered to be one of his specialties: Anton Bruckner.
The composer began writing the first outlines of his Symphony No. 9 in 1887. His death occurred in the October 1896, leaving behind an unfinished work of three magnificent movements.
Bruckner first encountered the music of Wagner in 1863, the year in which he composed his first and unnumbered symphony. Thereafter, days on end of working obsessively, as well as romantic and professional misfortune, led to a deterioration in his health almost to the point of losing his sanity.
All of this suffering is heard in the magnificent music of the Ninth Symphony.
TRACK LISTING:
Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) – Symphony No. 9 in D Minor
Feierlich (misterioso) [23:24]
Scherzo (bewegt lebhaft) [ 10:04]
Sehr langsam (feierlich) [26:11]
FINAL THOUGHT:
Regardless of the poor audio on these Leningrad Masters recordings, the performance of the Leningrad Philharmonic and Mravinsky’s conducting shines through – and Brucker definitely goes out with a bang.
Recorded live at St. Florian, near Linz at the International Bruckner Festival 1996
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ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
Sorry, Anton, this bloated bore of a Symphony is about as boring as it can get – and it’s not the band (or Pierre Boulez’s fault).
Anton Bruckner
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES by Ewald Mark (translated by Stewart Spencer)
THE PROJECT:
In September 1992, after a magnificent concert in London by the Vienna Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez, the conductor and the orchestra’s then managing director, Walter Blovsky, found themselves sitting next o each other at a reception and doing what conductors and orchestra managers like doing most of all; drawing up plans for the future.
When in the course of their conversation, Blovsky floated the idea of a performance of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony in the Abbey Church at St. Florian in September 1996. Boulez asked for time to think it over. After all, that would mean departing from the preferred practice of performing the work in the concert hall before recording it in the studio.
But the diaries of both the conductor and the orchestra allowed for only a live recording. It was not long, however, before Boulez gave the project his blessing after rehearsing at the Musikverein in Vienna, they would travel to Linz and stay there, with further rehearsals and the concerts themselves at St. Florian on 21 and 22 September. These would be filmed by Euroart and ORF and recorded by Deutsche Grammophon.
APPROACHES TO BRUCKNER:
In 1970, Boulez wrote an article for the Bayreuth Festival programme, “Approaches To Parsifal,” an article which, twenty-six years later in Vienna, encouraged me to ask the composer and conductor about his approach to Bruckner.
When Boulez receied his musical training between 1943 and 1946, Bruckner was virtually unknown in France – merely a name in books on the history of music, nothing more. According to Boulez, the general attitude to Bruckner was more or less that “he’s good enough for Central Europe but of no interest to us.”
But, as Boulez goes on, “there are two reasons why I can’t accept this point of view. First, the French have always been fanatical about Wagner, his chromatic language had a profound influence on them.
Pierre Boulez
Secondly, they have always been particularly receptive to this kind of harmonic language – at least from Debussy onwards. So I simply don’t understand why the French weren’t immediately conscious of the wonderful harmonic language, this lacyrinthine harmonic language.”
Charles Munch hailed from Alsace but taught at the Leipzig Conservatory while playing in the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwangler and Bruno Walter. Pierre Montreux worked as guest conductor with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam alongside Willem Mengelberg. And Andrei Ouytens was the first Frenchman to conduct at Bayreuth.
All three men regularly conducted Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner in the concert hall and recording studio, while ignoring Bruckner’s works. It was left to Daniel Barenboim during his years with the Orcestre de Paris to introduce Brucker’s symphonies to French audiences. But for the musicians, too, these scores were terra incognita, and the orchestra even had to acquire a set of Wagner tubas in order to be able to produce the right sound.
The Eight Symphony Under Klemperer That Was The Fifth.
A key experience for the elderly Igor Stravinsky was a gramophone recording of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra under Bruno Walter. Did Boulez have a similarly seminal experience with Bruckner?
The conductor recalls that during the 1960s he was often in London and regularly took the opportunity to hear Otto Klemperer conduct. He heard Beethoven, Mahler and, for the first time, Bruckner. When, in the course of the discussion mentioned at the outset, the question arose as to which of Bruckner’s symphonies he might like to conduct at a concert with the Vienna Philharmonic, he spontaneously chose the Eighth, because this, he said, was the work that had left such a deep impression on him when he had heard it under Klemperer with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Otto Klemperer
Many years later Klemperer’s daughter Lotta explained that it had in fact been the Fifth that Boulez had heard on that occasion. To this day, Boulez remains uncertain as to whom he owes his introduction to the Eighth. But at least he now knows that ‘memory always counterfeits the very thing one wants to feel.’
A Plea In Favor Of the Haas Edition
Any performance of a Bruckner symphony naturally begs the question as to which edition to prefer. It is a question that Pierre Boulez has had to confront in turn. He decided in favor of the Haas edition, as it seemed to him that the cuts in the Nowak version are unnecessary. ‘They sometimes destroy the symmetry, logic and structure.’
Equally clear-cut was his decision to choose the ‘original version’ in preference to that of 1887: ‘In the 1887 version the first and fourth movements end in the same way, whereas in the ‘original version’ the epilogue of the opening movement dies away ppp.’
Pierre Boulez is also familiar with some of Bruckner’s letters and with the anecdotes that have grown up around the composer. There is a passage, for example, in which Bruckner expresses his ‘deep emotion and gratitude to the highly esteemed Philharmonic Society‘ on the occasion of the first performance of the Eighth Symphony in 1892.
As an example of opportunism, this takes some beating and strikes more or less the same note as Wagner’s letters to King Ludwig II. ‘For me,’ says Boulez, ‘the boundary between a composer’s life and works is uncrossable. Or, to put it another way, the score is always the main thing for me.’
After studying the score in detail, therefore, Boulez can image that the double-dotted rhythms may be played more tautly by the orchestra, very much as ears attuned to Stravinsky and Bartok might expect them to be played. But then, with typically French generosity, he qualifies his remark: ‘From the very outset, I accepted that I would undoubtedly get more from the orchestra than they would get from me.’
Acoustic Problems
Both as a member of the audience and as a conductor, Pierre Boulez has had ample experience of the vagaries of church acoustics. He still clearly remembers a performance of Berlioz’s Symphonie funebre et triomphaleat St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and the nerve-racking struggle of the solo trombones with the building’s infamous echo.
During the summer of 1975 he conducted Mahler’s Ninth Symphony with the New York Philharmonic in Chartres Cathedral and recalls: ‘The performance of the fourth movement was ideal, but in the second and third movements in particular the audience heard absolutely nothing. Yet is was impossible to play it any slower, otherwise it would have lost all character. Because of this, one is willing to make compromises, but a compromise must not be taken too far.’
Vienna Philharmonic
When the Vienna Philharmonic performed Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony under Pierre Boulez in the Abbey Church of St. Florian in September 1996 – only weeks before the centanary of Bruckner’s death – it was unnecessary to make any such compromises. This, after all, is the church in whose crypt the composer lies buried in a simple sarcophagus placed beneath the great organ that bears his name.
Or to put it another way; a great 20th Century composer has been paid homage to one of the great composers of the 19th Century.
Ewald Markl (translation: Stewart Spencer)
TRACK LISTING:
Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) – Symphony No. 8 in C Minor
Allegro Moderato [15:08]
Scherzo: Allegro Moderato – Trio, Langsam, Scherzo Da Capo [ 13:39]
Adagio: Feierlich Langsam, Doch Nicht Schleppend [24:52]
Finale: Feierlich, Nicht Schnell [22:19]
FINAL THOUGHT:
Come at me, Bruckner-ites – but I can’t get behind this one. The work, not the performance. It’s just a bore. Go back to Symphonies 3-6 for the good stuff.
Recorded 1980, Berliner Philharmonie – Berlin, West Germany
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ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
One word – ROUSING!
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ORIGINAL LINER NOTES by Richard Osborne
“Listen to the music with reverence; for the composer meant what he said, and he was speaking of sacred things,” wrote Sir Donald Tovey of the Sixth Symphony’sslow movement.
It is well said, for this is wise and compassionate music, Sachs-like in its broodings. Tovey’s advocacy of the symphony in the early years of the century was remarkable then and would be remarkable now, for the Sixth– personal, economical, thrillingly shaped and scored – has never been much noticed by the wider musical public.
Anton Bruckner
During Bruckner’s lifetime only the Adagioand Scherzoof the Symphony were known. Wilhelm Jahn, director of the Vienna Hofoper, had conducted these two movements, to considerable acclaim, at a Philharmonic concert in Vienna in February 1883, seventeen months after the work’s completion.
But it was Gustav Mahler who brought the full score to public notice (albeit with cuts in some of the third subject groups and some revised orchestration) at a concert in Vienna in February 1899.
Mahler had long wanted to present a Bruckner symphony to the Philharmonic audience, and his choice was as enterprising as it was inspired. One wonders what Mahler made of the work in performance.
He was himself to write slow movements of omparable beauty, but his dance movements, with their persistent nostalgia, their recurrent irony, and their sophisticated orchestral method rarely, if ever, attempt to re-appropriate and re-fashion the classical scherzo as fascinatingly as Bruckner does.
Bruckner’s Trio, with its woodland horns and haunting sense of an Urwald far distant in time from our own, is a minor masterpiece in itself.
Like the trudging start to the Scherzo (which may or may not have given Mahler a germinal idea for his own Sixth Symphony), Bruckner’s music is rooted in certainties which Mahler all too rarely glimpsed.
Bruckner’s two outer movements are incluctably splendid; but they, too, follow a ground-plan, and an orchestral procedure, radically different from anything we encounter in Mahler.
Anton Bruckner – Statue – Vienna, Austria
Spacioius in design, swift in process, without a spare ounce of flesh on the orchestral texturing, the finale searches out the tonic A major– the key briefly burked out by trumpets and horns in bar 23 of the movement across a quietened, minor-key, nocturnal landscape.
During the course of the movement there are many arrivals on precipitate tonal steeps, as well as blander, blanket moments, abortive fermatas marking journey’s end.
“In Bruckner,” Robert Simpson has brilliantly observed, “the unexpected is inevitable, and the inevitable totally unexpected.” This is certainly true of the Sixth’sfinale. Its mood is by turns furtive, heroic, feverish, serene and assertive. Never, though, is it despairing. It is a movment marked by a heroic refusal to contemplate victory until all the possibilities of defeat have been squarely faced. Onlly out of doubt is faith born.
Berliner Philharmoniker
The first movement is almost unequivocally splendid! Is there a recapitulation in the history of the symphony between Beethoven and Silelius more unexpected or more thrilling that that at the heart of this particular movment?
The use of the drum is Beethovenian both as an harmonic pivot and as a source of awesome splendor in the orchestral texture; but though the effects are Beethovenian in origin they are entirely Brucknerian in their application.
Earlier, the movement begins with the note of C sharp pulsing like rapid morse high on the violins – though the crucial ideas are held, with typical Brucknerian reticence, low in the cellos and basses.
Herbert Von Karajan
Here, within a characteristically plain tonic and dominant ambit, an array of highly charged Neopolitan harmoniers give the music its special charisma, just as broad rhythmic formulations are soon to give focus to the exquisite lyrical episodes, the music made magical by the arcane loveliness of the kaleidoscopically changing inner rhythmic fragments.
By the code, as Tovey eloquently observes, the thematic inversions are ‘passing from key to key beneath a tumultuous surface, sparkling like the Homeric seas.’
TRACK LISTING:
Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) – Symphony No. 6 in A Major
Majestoso [15:16]
Adagio: Sehr feierlich [18:58]
Scherzo: Nicht schnell – Trio, Langsam [7:52]
Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell [15:13]
FINAL THOUGHT:
If you’ve decided to listen to some Brucknertoday – start with this one. Your heart rate will rise. Most doctors say Bruckner’s 6th equals one hour of cardio.
Recorded January 20 and 21, 1991 – Severance Hall, Cleveland, Ohio
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ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
There are reasons why many people and critics are not fans of Bruckner’s 5thSymphony, this performance by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Christoph Von Dohnanyi is not one them.
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ORIGINAL LINER NOTES by Mark Audus
The Fifth is at once the most compelling and forbidding of Bruckner’s symphonies. The Finaleis one of the crowning glories of symphonic literature, but the road to it is fraught with pitfalls for the weak of heart.
Passages of blazing glory rub shoulders with others of great austerity: rich sonorities stand next to spare counterpoint, and earthy dance-music next to sublime lyricism. Such antitheses – hallmarks of all Brucker’s mature music – are particularly marked here and perhaps explain why this, one of the greatest of his symphonies, has never been among the best-loved.
Anton Bruckner at the piano
The composer himself may have recognized his exceptional achievement in the Fifth; and recounted to Richard Wagner: “Dr. Liszt played through my Fifth Symphony, and ‘proclaimed’ (his own words!) my virtues to [Prince] Hohenlohe, ‘My only consolation in Vienna!'”
Yet even Bruckner’s friends seem to have been daunted by the work, and it received only two performances in Bruckner’s lifetime; the first on April 20, 1887 (almost ten years after its completion) in an arrangement for two pianos by Josef Schalk, and the second on April 9, 1894 in a heavily cut and edited version by Franz Schalk (still to be heard until relatively recently) which the composer was mercifully too ill to attend.
Lying at the center of Bruckner’s symphonic oevre, the Fifth seems both to close the door on the early symphonies and to look forward to the mighty world of the late works. Indeed, a number of writers have described it as Janus-like, a metaphor that can be extended beyond the scope of Bruckner’s own works to that of a wider music history. For it seems as once to look back to the worlds of Classicism and the Baroque and forward to a new kind of music which fuses counterpoint and symphonic form.
Anton Bruckner – Statue – Vienna, Austria
The Janus metaphor may be applied on many levels, although the Fifth is full of thematic cross-references between the movements, the most obvious are between the second and third (both of which start with the same motif at different speeds) and the first and last – suggesting a symmetrical layout.
Such an observation is corroborated by the proportions of the of the movements, which are more evenly balanced than the beginning-heavy Seventh and the end-heavy Eighth. We might even suggest that Bruckner composed the work ‘inside out.’
Composition began (on February 14, 1875) with the Adagio, followed by the first movement, the Scherzoand Trio, and the Finale(May 1877). Subsequent revisions brought Bruckner full-circle to complete the Adagioby January 4, 1878.
Bruckner dedicated the Fifth Symphony to ‘his Excellency Herr Carl von Stremayr, Imperial Minister for Culture And Education.’ This is particularly appropriate, for not only did Stremayr help secure Bruckner a professorship in harmony and counterpoint at Vienna University, but this is also the most ‘learned’ of Bruckner’s symphonies.
It is difficult to apply the term ‘programme music’ in the conventional sense to any of these works, the Fourth comes the closest, but the Fifth lays greater claim to the description of ‘absolute music.’
The beginning of the slow introduction – unique in Bruckner’s symphonies and itself a ‘Classical’ feature – can almost be heard in terms of an exercise in species counterpoint. Both the introduction and the following Allegroseem to be ‘about’ avoiding the implied tonic chord, so that even the first subject quickly veers to the minor mode, and though the tonic is finally achieved, the whole movement still has an introductory feel about it.
TRACK LISTING:
Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) – Symphony No. 5in B Flat Major
Introduction: Adagio – Allegro [19:41]
Sehr langsam [18:10]
Scherzo: Molto vivace – Trio [13:05]
Finale: Allegro molto [22:53]
FINAL THOUGHT:
I mean, definitely not my go to when I have a hankering for Bruckner. That said, it does have some damn fine rousing moments!
I mean, it’s Bruckner’s Seventh – who can screw this up – certainly not Herbert Von K!
Anton Bruckner
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES by Richard Osborne, 1975
The Seventh Symphony is perhaps Bruckner’s most perfectly wrought work, his richest, most luminous utterance.
It was begun with the Scherzoin 1881, droll, dancing and humane. Then in 1882, under the spell of Wagner’s Parsifal, Bruckner began work on the beautiful first movement, a movement of aspiring eloquences whose principal theme, the composer tell us, came to him (scored for a viola) in a dream.
The Adagio is said to have been written under the influence of a premonition of Wagner’s death; indeed, its coda, a profound and solemn threnody, was redrafted when news arrived from Venice on February 13, 1883, of the Master’s passing.
Completed later in 1883, the Symphony received its first performance under Arthur Nikisch, in Leipzig on December 30, 1884. The work was dedicated, not to the memory of Wagner (Bruckner invariably chose living dedicates, among whom he numbered Almighty God), but to Wagner’s patron, King Ludwig II of Bavaria.
It was well liked, and as the revised autograph was used by the printers of the first edition, it offers a rare example in the Bruckner canon of a clean text, through the anonymously scrawled phrase ‘gilt nicht’ (not valid) over the timpani, triangle and cymbal at the Adagio’secstatic climax has excited controversy. The cymbal was probably Nikisch’s idea; but cymbal clashes are not necessarily banal. They can be emblems of light and divine revelation, as Wagner himself shows in the Prelude to Lohengrin.
Certainly most eminent Bruckner conductors see fit to include the cymbal, ‘valid’ or not. Some editions (but not Robert Haas) also include meddlesome tempo markings which, along with other ‘traditional’ effects, can, if followed, seriously detract from the movement’s single vision. But this is not a problem which need detain us in this set. Karajan’s whole, luminous way with the later Bruckner symphonies is well known – has, indeed, been one of the glories of the European musical scene for four decades.
The theme that launches the Seventh Symphony is one of the loveliest, and longest, Bruckner ever wrote; a glorious, sweeping melody on the cellos spanning two-octaves.
Always longer than one remembered, it sweeps down, up and and across; hill, valley and a whole ample landscape beyond. As one paragraph ended, another begins, even more serene, the eye now travelling upwards and outwards from the earth – one of the most beguiling and characteristic tricks of romantic landscape art, with its love of sweeping vistas and intimations of immortality beyond.
A second them in B major on oboes and clarinet, and recognizable by its discreet ‘Wagnerian’ appoggiatura, intrudes, adding a different kind of radiance, a deeper distance, to the music and it, too, is answered with quiet ecstasy.
But, as so often in Bruckner, a pizzicato figure brings new life; a climax is gestated, itself gestatory, for from it a third and finale theme is born; a naive dancing motive in fustian octaves, not unlike the germ cell of the first movement of Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, though more home spun.
Herbert Von Karajan
Climaxes in the Seventh Symphony are rarely climactic as they are in the Eighth. A triple forte arrives, but it strikes no terror in our hearts and leads to one of Bruckner’s most spacious meditations, the page almost bereft of notes.
Only the eye perceives the V-shape of the opening theme spread by the clarinets, while the oboe arches above (a shape which will usher in the movement’s coda) and the trombones cluster beneath, a humped, rock outcrop. Twice the rustic third theme fits across our view high on the flute, until the flute, finding voice, undergoes a symbolic transformation – becomes a a dove descending, ushering in a passage for cellos (soon to be gloriously extended) which recalls Parsifaland the mysteries of the Grail.
Anton Bruckner – Statue – Vienna, Austria
The third subject returns, the basses, mocking, inverting it step by step until it steals away in an elfin motion on the solo flute. Another climax bursts, full of striding V-formations. But serenity is the movement’s keynote and the next climax, after an arcane and (for this Symphony) surprisingly long recapitulation-cum-development, rides in, aptly enough, on the dancing third subject.
Out of the ensuing silence part of the movement’s opening theme emerges; then a bridge passage of great harmonic beauty; and finally, the coda peacefully, radiantly ushered in by the chameleon flutes while, beneath, tremolando strings conjure an ecstatic ground swell and the brass prepare to resound the great movement proudly home.
The Adagiobegins with a glorious, imposing utterance on violas and Wagner tubas in a key, C sharp minor, skillfully avoided until now. Then, in the fourth bar, a second theme appears in the strings, a deep-throated hymn similar in outline to the ‘non confundar’ of the Te Deum.
A long, undulating, contemplatively beautiful extension of the strings main subject leads to a short climax from which violins and clarinets sweep solemnly down to horns and tubas poised on the second subject’s very edge.
The subject, when it comes, is something of a surprise; one of Bruckner’s most winningly accessible melodies floated off the beat, graciously in 1/4 time in the courtly and chivalrous key of F-sharp.
The opening measures return, still in C-sharp minor and even more massively impressive, until the music, sweeping onwards and upwards, reaches a C major climax and a wonderful series of stark, antiphonal statements – flutes and oboes, horns, sotto voce strings and, finally, trombones erecting keys like royal standards before the regal G major climax is bowed nobly in.
Bruckner’s slow movements could often end halfway through, so marked in the mid-way caesura. But the second subject now returns in fantastic guise, the first violins wreathing laurel leaves in its hair. Again, the music pauses, but a brief transition leads us more swiftly than we dared imagine into a reiteration of the tubas’ solemn theme.
Anton Bruckner
This time, though, the strings’ caressing motion tells of imminent apotheosis. Wave upon wave of sound – as glorious a preparation as Bruckner ever penned – lead us to the disputed climax; C major, triangle, timpani and resounding cymbal giving out, with the full orchestra, a climactic triple forte.
The coda, by contrast, is cavernous and grand; a eulogy to the dead Wagner, with one magnificent horn crescendo and an octave fall of the violins’ C sharp that unburdens the soul. In a sense, this grand movement seems no longer than a slow movement by the mature Mozart – a tribute to the profundity and reach of Mozart’s music; but a tribute, too, to the depth and succinctness of Bruckner himself, who even in this majestic Symphony remains decisively within the pale of the greatest of all symphonic traditions.
The Scherzois gloriously all of a piece, with its steadily dancing motive rhythm and the proud cock-crow of the trumpets (the familiar description – though whether cocks crow in such exemplary fourths, fifths and octave leaps must be a matter for ornithological verification).
The dipping string theme nine bars in has to English ears, something of an Elgarian feel to it. The Trio, by contrast, is a rich song of summer, quarried from the Scherzo’sopening pulse, beginning in F major but moving radiantly beyond before its nostalgically songful returns.
That the darting opening theme of the Finale is related to the Symphony’s opening is an interesting, if somewhat academic, point. More significant is its terse ‘humorous’ quality (Haydn could have used it). Rather more familiar ground is reached in teh second subject, a lovely broad chorale, complete with Wagnerian appoggiatura and the familiar stalking Bruckner bass. And to these elements a third is joined, for in a series and mock-heroic confrontations.
A minor solemnly vies with C major, and A flat major vies with both, in a quest for tonic status. At one point the violin break cover, soaring imposingly upwards, and it is only with the solemn, schoolmasterly intervention of the Wagner tubas that the debate is temporarily stilled.
Berliner Philharmoniker
From here, themes are suddenly and surprisingly inverted (a familiar Bruckner device), another battle is joined and an even bigger climax achieved, C major sailing out of the fray, after a suitably pregnant silence, with the lovely chorale (prize booty, indeed) safely stowed.
No doubt Bruckner’s humor, like Wordsworth’s, will strike many by its meagerness alone. But blunt, and quirky and abstruse as it may seem, this finale reconciles dignity and humor in a remarkable way. Brevity, they say, is the soul of wit, and this Finale (gloriously scored) is, by Brucknerian standards, brief to the point of being abrupt. But if its opening theme could indeed have been used by Haydn, and if the joyous repetitions in the coda suggest the Olympian playfulness of Beethoven at the end of his Eight Symphony, the mix as a whole remains indelibly Brucknerian.
For terse and witty as this finale is, it has – once E major reestablishes its hold upon the rock face, which it does soon after the chorale’s return – not only ebullience to its credit but a kind of cosmic sufficiency, hymning us, as only Bruckner can, with an invincible splendor.
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TRACK LISTING:
Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) – Symphony No. 7 in E Major
Allegro moderato – [20:06]
Adagio, Sehr feierlich und seh langsam – [21.55]
Scherzo, Sehr schnell – [9:50]
Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht schnell – [12:26]
FINAL THOUGHT:
An awesome work and an incredible performance – but, man, those liner notes are so annoying and so overwritten. Still – a top notch, hall of fame worthy recording.
Recorded 1970, Jesus Christus Kirche, Berlin, Germany; Remastered 1987
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ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
I mean, it’s Bruckner, it’s von Karajan, and it’s the Berliner Philharmoniker… what could go wrong? Not much.
Anton Bruckner
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES by Peter Branscombe, 1985
Bruckner wrote his Fourth Symphony in 1874, but between 1878 and 1880 he revised it twice, completely replacing the scherzo and finale. In its new form the work was successfully performed at a Vienna Philharmonic concert under Hans Richter on February 20, 1881. The symphony was nevertheless subjected to further reworkings in 1886 and 1887-1888, but it is in the 1878-80 version that it is normally heard.
Anton Bruckner – Statue – Vienna, Austria
I. Bewegt, nict zu schnell: Over shimmering ppp strings there rings out the horn-call that will dominate the first movement and return at the end of the finale. With a typical two-plus-three rising figure Bruckner introduces his second thematic complex. A sonorous tutti gives way to a woodbird call in the violins.
The development ranges from the quietest of woodland musings to the full roar of striding tutti and resonant chorale, and the recapitulation creates the impression of a familiar landscape viewed from a new vantage point. Though the coda steals in quietly, even menacingly, this is to be a passage of the utmost splendor.
Anton Bruckner
II. Andante quasi Allegretto: Although the typical Bruckner Adagio lies in the future, there is a solemnity about this lovely movement that on its own terms is quite as impressive.
Cello cantilena, a quiet chorale and a beautiful viola melody prove the principal material for this boldly modulating, questing movement. The principal theme is heard for the last time in the coda. Then, after a powerful climax, the movement dies away with tonic and dominant timpani-taps and pizzicato chords.
Herbert von Karajan
III. Scherzo – Bewegt: There is no precedent for the splendid ‘hunting’ Scherzowhich – along in Bruckner’s symphonies – is in 2/4 rather than 3/4 time.
In two-plus-three rhythm the horns launch their calls ever more intensely above hazy strings; the heavy brass join in before a gentler string response, but there are also eerie phrases to come. The Trio, Nicht zu schnell, Keinesfalls schleppend, presents a magical period of calm; the sudden shift back to the reprise of the Scherzois an exciting moment.
Berliner Philharmoniker
IV. Finale: Bewegt, doch nict zu schnell: The movement opens in an ominous B-flat minor, with clarinets and first horn enunciating a falling three-note figure which will become important at the first tutti, where it is answered by the two-plus-three note-pattern that has already been remarked on.
This powerful paragraph (it looks back to the theme of the Scherzoand the rhythm of the opening movement) closes in a firm E-flat; a drop in tempo users in the second subject on the upper strings, in C minor.
The C major theme that comes next is almost vacuous by comparison, and what follows reveals that Bruckner has not yet attained full master of the symphonic finale.
The coda, however, is a wonderful achievement; horns emerge from a wash of woodwind to stride purposefully towards a majestic final peroration.
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TRACK LISTING:
Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) – Symphony No. 4in E-Flat Minor – ‘Romantic’
Bewegt, nicht zu schnell – 20:37
Andante quasi Allegretto – 15:28
Scherzo: Bewegt – Trio, Nicht zu schnell, Keinesfalls schleppend – 10:33
Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell – 23:02
FINAL THOUGHT:
Don’t like the piece? Fine. Don’t really like Bruckner? Okie-dokie. But this performance cannot be denied. A perfect match of music, conductor and orchestra.
Recording Location: Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, Los Angeles, May 12-13, 1997
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ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
A great performance by a great orchestra with a great conductor of an ALMOST great symphony.
Anton Bruckner
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES by Tim Page:
Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) is a decidedly idiosyncratic Olympian. He has never been one of those composers beloved by almost everybody (as might be said of Mozart or Beethoven) and, throughout much of the world, we do not inevitably expect to find a Bruckner work on the schedules of our symphony orchestras. Brucker’s statue might be likened to that of Hector Berlioz or Jean-Philippe Rameau; nobody doubts his greatness, but his work remains relatively unknown to the casual concertgoer.
Still, those listeners who like Bruckner’s music at all usually love it deeply. if he may still be considered something of a ‘cult’ composer, his is among the most passionate of such cults. Watch the audience at a performance of one of Bruckner’s symphonies sometimes. Half of the people in attendance will seem to know every note by heart, submerging themselves in meditation as the work progresses, smiling when a particularly beatific passage for strings shimmers by, sitting up sharply as the timpani usher in yet another vast, churning crescendo. And woe to any critic who presumes to doubt the faith!
The three Bruckner symphonies we hear most often are probably the sweeping and spacious Symphony No. 8, the Symphony No. 9 he left unfinished at his death (one wonders whether anybody could have written music to follow the glorious conclusion of the Adagio, one of the most serenely exalted leavetakings in history) and the Symphony No. 4, which Bruckner himself christened the ‘Romantic.’
Traditionally, Bruckner has been linked with Richard Wagner. While Bruckner undoubtedly worshiped Wagner (going so far as to dedicate his third symphony to him), today, more than a century later, the two men seem less and less alike.
Anton Bruckner
Wagner’s music is restless and charged with tension; we follow it with a near-theatrical curiosity about where it may lead. Bruckner’s work, on the other hand, is often slow-moving and even static; at times, despite the composer’s large orchestral forces, he seems a sort of 19th-century proto-minimalist.
We listen to his symphonies with the pleasing sense that we have already arrived at our destination before the music started and we are now proceeding to immerse ourselves in it, with piety and gratitude. Some lines from T.S. Eliot have always seemed particularly appropriate to Bruckner:
We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Bruckner wrote the Symphony No. 4 in 1874, but went on to revise it in 1878 and then to rewrite the finale in 1879-1880. Later, he even went so far as to tinker with it some more (in 1886 and 1887-1888) but it is the 1878-1880 version that is usually heard today.
He gave the work the subtitle ‘Romantic’in 1876 and even added a literary program to go along with it. And so the opening of the first movement was described thus: ‘A citadel of the Middle Ages. Daybreak. Reveille is sounded from the tower, The gates open. Knights on proud charges leap forth. The magic of nature surrounds them.’
Such effusion has gone out of fashion – and, indeed, it seems that Bruckner himself had mixed emotions about what he was doing. By the finale, he had pretty much given up the effort: ‘In the last movement I’ve forgotten completely what picture I had in mind,’ he wrote, with refreshing candor.
None of this should have mattered to him, of course, for the ‘Romantic’ Symphony works very well indeed as ‘absolute music,’ and we need not concern ourselves with knights and citadels to admire and understand it.
The approximately 70+ minute work is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, three kettledrums, and a large string section.
Los Angeles Philharmonic
The first movementis long and grand, with an early emphasis on the horn, and some typically expansive development in the strings and brass. (The range between Bruckner’s loudest and softest passages in this movement is unusually pronounced.) The solemn second movement, marked Andante, includes some unusual modulations, a graceful melody for the viola and a lowing chorale.
The third movement brings the horn back to the center of activity; this Scherzois based on hunting calls, although there is a calm central section that harkens back to minuet form. The finalestarts with some ominous passages for horn and clarinets, with the theme working its way into some noble writing for the trumpets. A long, busy contrapuntal development follows before Bruckner users in a blazing, triumphant and completely successful conclusion to the gigantic work.
Lawrence Gilman, for many years the chief music critic of the New York Herald-Tribune, once summed up the special appeal of Bruckner: ‘For a few, he was, and is, at rare intervals, a seer and a prophet – one who knew the secret of a strangely exalted discourse. Rapt and transfigured, he saw visions and dreamed dreams as colossal, as grandiose, as awful in lonely splendor, as those of William Blake. We know that for Bruckner, too, some ineffable beauty flamed and sank and flamed again across the night.’
And so it does.
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TRACK LISTING:
Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) – Symphony No. 4in E-Flat Minor – ‘Romantic’
Bewegt, nicht zu schnell – 20:10
Andante quasi Allegretto – 17:01
Scherzo: Bewegt – Trio, Nicht zu schnell, Keinesfalls schleppend – 11:01
Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell – 21:30
FINAL THOUGHT:
Until my most recent re-listening of this symphony, I simply remembered it as what absolutely had to be the inspiration for the opening music of ‘Star Trek.’ don’t believe me? Listen to Bruckner’s 4th first – and then to the ”Star Trek’ opening.
Recording Location: Het Concertgebouw, December 1994 – Live Recording
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ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
Now we’re talking!
Anton Bruckner
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES – “Anton Bruckner: An Antenna Pointing Into The 20th Century” – Nikolaus Harnoncourt In Conversation With Walter Dobner
W.D.: According to one 19th-Century review of the Third Symphony, “Bruckner has his moments -flashes of imagination of a kind found only with great men on genius – but they are soon past.” I don’t suppose you share this view, Herr Harnoncourt?
N.H.: Not for a moment. But nor do I share the view of contemporary critics of Beethoven’s Second Symphony. None the less, there’s some truth in the suggestion that a transcendent genius like Bruckner – or any other great composer for that matter – positively invites disapproval and criticism. You can’t expect people to agree completely with such music.
The whole meaning of a work is revealed only by contradiction. It’s only when you ask what happens between these flashes of genius that you may find a lot happening that may not appear so brilliant after all.
There was a time when I myself saw Bruckner in this light. I felt I was returning home from a Bruckner symphony with a relatively small number of very important discoveries. But the symphonies were too great for that.
Today, I’ve changed my mind completely, since I now understand much better what this music is all about.
Anton Bruckner
W.D.: Can you say in a few words what you mean by that?
N.H.: The experience I had with Bruckner was similar to the one I had with Beethoven. I initially had great problems with the finale of both the Ninth Symphony and Fidelio. They struck me as too distended and, in consequence, as seriously lacking in substance. Only later did it become clear to me that I was approaching this music with the wrong standard.
In the case of the Missa solemnis I suddenly saw that it was simply absurd to judge Beethoven by Mozart’s standards. Beethoven makes other demands , asks other questions and so he got other answers. As soon as I set aside my “Mozart” yardstick and found one that seemed to me better suited to Beethoven, I suddenly discovered a whole new approach to his works.
Exactly the same thing happened with Bruckner. The more I got to know Brahms, the more precious Bruckner became. It was presumably the great effort and seriousness of Brahm’s writing that produced such wonderful results after years of polishing and honing and that led me to his antithetical opposite, Bruckner, bringing him closer and closer to me.
W.D.: Is Bruckner not also so difficult to understand because there are so many different links? Although his music speaks the language of the 19th century, it is also deeply indebted on a formal level to the Classical 18th century, to say, nothing of the gestures – and mysticism – of the Middle Ages.
N.H.: Curiously enough, Bruckner strikes me – far more than any other composer of his generation – as someone with an antenna pointing into the 20th century. When people claim that it was Mahler who laid the foundation of the Second Viennese School, I have to say that this seems to me to have been even more true of Bruckner – not that I would want to disagree with any of the criteria you’ve listed.
Those aspects that go back to the Middle Ages are presumably tied up in some way with Bruckner’s markedly rustic character. But I don’t think it’s possible to approach his works from a biographical standpoint. If you were to start out from Bruckner’s personality, you’d expect to find extreme conservatism in his works. But his visions really can’t be squared with his simplicity as a person. In this respect, he is unique as a genius.
W.D.: But is it really possible to draw a total distinction between Bruckner as a person and Bruckner as a composer? Shouldn’t the thematic triality of his symphonic movements be seen not only as a symbol of the Trinity but also as evidence of Bruckner’s personal faith? What are your thoughts on this and on the theory that only a believer can interpret Bruckner?
N.H.: I don’t think faith comes into it. Anyone who performs Bruckner needs to be familiar with Austrian music, with Schubert, with peasant music and the whole ländler thing. I wouldn’t dare try to find evidence of Bruckner’s religious beliefs in the symbols of his music.
It may well be that these signs of personal belief does exist, but biographers, exegetes and musicologists who explain this only on the basis of the works, without the composer’s say so, are guilty, I believe, of venturing into a highly dangerous and highly speculative area.
For me, Brucker’s symphonies are couched in a language of musical sounds that is his very own, personal language. That his personality was very strongly influenced by his faith is sufficiently well attested. Whether his music would sound different without this pronounced religious influence, I don’t think any of us can say. But I think it’s far too simple as an explanation to derive this thematic triality from the Trinity.
W.D.: The ‘Musician of God,’ is only one of many Brucknerian cliches. Bruckner is also sometimes regarded as a typically Austrian composer. It’s argued that he takes his place in a line beginning with Schubert and leading to Mahler and, finally, to Schoenberg.
N.H.: I’d describe only highly concrete details of his music as typically Austrian, for example, the Triosin his Scherzosand a few melodic ideas that I associate with Bruckner’s rustic origins or with elements of Austrian folk music.
With Schubert, it’s totally different – he could only be Austrian, his music speaks Viennese dialect. The line of development that starts out with Schubert certainly leads in Bruckner’s general direction, but it actually goes, rather, to Johann Strauss; that’s pure unadulterated Austrian music for you.
There seems to me a very clear line of development from Bruckner to the Second Viennese School, especially to Alban Berg, rather less so to Schoenberg, although Schoenberg often transcribed Strauss.
I’m happy to leave out Mahler – he’s really not conceivable without Bruckner. I regard Bruckner’s music as absolute. The autobiographical element in his music isn’t all that marked. Unlike Mahler, who uses Bruckner’s vocabulary, Bruckner does not retell his own life in a superficial way. I see a basic difference between a composer who sees himself as the agent of his talent and one who uses the vocabulary of a composer like Bruckner in order to tell us all about his private sufferings.
W.D.: Herr Harnoncourt, you say that Mahler is inconceivable without Bruckner. Is Bruckner conceivable without Wagner?
N.H.: Certainly. The links between Bruckner and Wagner must have been in the air at the time. You can already hear Wagner and Tchaikovsky in a number of Mendelssohn’s works – I’m thinking of Die erste Walpurgisnacht and Die schöne Melusine. Virtually the whole of the 19th century is contained in these works.
One has the feeling that if Mendelssohn had had a normal lifespan, Wagner would have been inhibited by such proximity. I don’t think there is anything in Wagner’s musical language that wasn’t already part of the spirit of the times. Wagner had to exist in the 19th century. Bruckner had to exist as a writer of symphonies, not as a music dramatist. The fact that Bruckner revered Wagner I see as a sign of his modesty.
W.D.: Herr Harnoncourt, you’re beginning your explanation of the world of Bruckner’s symphonies with his Third Symphony, of which there are three different versions. Why did you opt for the second version?
N.H.: The final version was ruled out for me on account of its excessive cuts and excisions that almost destroy the work’s organic unity. For me, it’s a makeshift solution designed to keep the symphony in the running, as it were.
The first version is very complex and rambling, with a lot of Wagnerian quotations. I could well imagine conducting this first version after extensive preparation. I see the second version as the result of Bruckner’s wrestling with the first one. Also, I think that the coda to the Scherzoprovides a very interesting and convincing ending here. I think Brucker knew perfectly well how he imagined his works would sound and that he set this down quite clearly.
He said: “My work is in the score.” But although he worked on the score, he did not – so to speak – prepare it in bite-sized morsels. The versions that various friends and conductors forced out of him were concessions to these friends and to audiences, prompted by the wish to be performed at all.
W.D.: And which edition of this symphony did you decide to use for your own performance?
N.H.: I’m conducting the second version in Nowak’s edition, since it’s the one I find most convincing. You must never forget that fashion plays an important part here, too. Now that we’re familiar with Nowak’s versions, we know how he arrived at his findings. The sources are available.
Of course, one could now try reaching one’s own conclusions and results on the strength of the sources. That’s the prerogative of every generation. I trusted Nowak more than I normally trust editors and haven’t reexamined every question on the basis of the sources in order to make my own decisions, but compared the various findings of the individual editions.
I also consulted an edition from the Concergebouw Orchestra, with whom I made this recording, since I also wanted to learn more about this orchestra’s tradition.
W.D.: Not only the Royal Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra can look back on a long tradition of performing Bruckner, so, too, can the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, with whom you began your career as a musician. They, too, have considerable experience of playing Bruckner’s works. To what extent was this knowledge of the performing tradition of use to you during your present involvement with Bruckner, or did you fell inhibited by it?
N.H.: These experiences were of great use to me and certainly didn’t inhibit me. The older I get, the more natural Bruckner’s musical language seems to me. I feel at home here, it’s the element in which I live and breathe. I can recall some very great performances of Bruckner while I was a cellist with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
I’m thinking in particular of Karajan during the 1950s. I’d be interested to hear those performances again and would like to know whether my experience at that time – I’d not yet turned thirty – would stand up to my present understanding. But they left an indelible impression on me.
In the case of the present performance, it was important for me to work with an orchestra that knows and understands Bruckner’s language. At the same time, of course, I had to fight against this experience at rehearsals, since there are certain passages that are interpreted in identical ways by virtually every conductor.
I’m thinking, for example, of the decelerandos, especially in the slow movement of the Third Symphony; the answers in the orchestra are almost always taken twice as slowly as the questions. There isn’t the slightest indication in the score that this is how these passages should be taken. And yet orchestras are used to playing them like this.
But when a composer like Bruckner writes even the tiniest change of tempo into the score and when he prescribes even the least expressive nuance by means of footnotes and explanations, I’m tempted to agree with him and included to clear away all this ballast.
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Within twenty-four hours of his meeting with Wagner in Bayreuth in September 1873, Anton Bruckner could no longer remember whether the Master had accepted the dedication of his Secondor Third Symphony.
Remarkable though this lapse must seem, contemporary accounts make it plain that Bruckner’s uncertainty was due not so much to his awesome encounter with a man whom he revered as “the master of all masters” as to the vast amounts of beer that he and Wagner had consumed.
With his memory of this historic encounter decidedly befuddled, Bruckner sent the older composer a note in an attempt to resolve the matter. “Symphony in D minor, where the trumpet begins the theme?,” he asked, to which Wagner appended his reply: “Yes, yes! Best wishes!”
The first draft of the score was completed by the end of the year, and Cosima Wagner confirmed receipt of the dedication copy on June 24, 1874. Shortly afterwards, Brucker offered his new symphony to the Vienna Philharmonic, but the orchestra rejected the piece after a trial run-through in the autumn of 1875.
As with so many of Bruckner’s works, the original version of the score proved only the starting point of a whole series of major revisions.
The ink on the dedication copy was scarcely dry before Bruckner had already set out to make ‘significant improvements to the Wagner Symphony (in D minor),’ to quote from a letter to Moritz von Mayfeld, but the result was not yet an independent version, for this, we have to wait until the thoroughgoing version of 1876/77, when Brucker added the ‘Adagio No. 2′ (1876) and produced an intermediate version that occupies a halfway house between the first and second versions. (As a result, there are a total of four versions of the slow movement – something of a rarity in the history of music – and three different versions of the symphony as a whole.)
On April 28, 1877, Bruckner finally added a note to the concluding movement ‘entirely new revision finished.’ The second version, Bruckner though, was now complete.
The work was premiered in this form in December 1877 and, notoriously, proved a failure. But Bruckner refused to be daunted and in January 1878 made a further series of changes to this second version, including the addition of a coda to the Scherzo. The second major revision dates from 1888/89, when Franz Schalk played a decisive role and incurred the charge of ‘foreign interference’ in the score. In this revised form the work found favor with its audiences.
The question of “failure” and “success” lead us straight to the heart of the problems surrounding the different versions. To a certain extent we are dealing here with “improvements” designed to accommodate the work to audience expectations. There is no doubt that Bruckner craved success and constantly sought recognition, avidly reading reviews. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion, therefore, that it was only those works that had proved an initial failure that were subjected to a process of revision, either by Bruckner himself or by others.
(It is surely significant in this context that the Seventh Symphony, with which the composer made his international breakthrough, was left untouched.) Legion are Bruckner’s remarks reflecting his conformist outlook and his willingness to make concessions.
In consequence, the various versions are assessed in different ways by musicians and scholars. For some, the principal aspect is the process of improvement, whereas others acknowledge the independence of each individual version.
It is important to realize that the changes should not be approached from a purely qualitative standpoint but must be examined in the light of the circumstances that produced them and the period at which they were made. Give the length of time that Bruckner devoted to the Third Symphony – a total of sixteen years – it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a ‘work in progress.’
In what ways do the three versions differ? This question is normally answered by reference to cuts, although this affects only one, albeit important, aspect. A comparison of the overall length of the symphony in all three versions reveals that, whereas the first version is 2056 bars long, the second runs to 1815 bars and the third is 1644 bars in length. But even here we must proceed with caution since the cuts do not affect all the movements equally. The Scherzois the exception to the rule inasmuch as it is eight bars longer in the second and third versions.
Further changes affect the structure of the musical periods, a process that Bruckner himself called ‘rhythmic ordering.’ In the transitions he strove to achieve a greater interweaving of the motifs, with denser textures in the long ascents to climaxes that so often fail to materialize.
He also altered the accompanying figures and instrumentation. In the case of the Third Symphony, there is also the question of Bruckner’s collage-like use of fifteen Wagnerian quotations, the vast majority of which had already disappeared by the time of the second version, a change no doubt dictated by the composer’s wish to reduce the work’s powerfully subjective content and, at the same time, emphasize its autonomy.
The second version is closely tied up wit the Concertgebouw’s Brucknerian tradition; the Third Symphony was the first of the composer’s symphonies to be played by the Amsterdam orchestra, when Willem Kes conducted a performance on October 13, 1892.
In 1897, Willem Mengelberg conducted the local premiere of the Fourth Symphony, and the Ninthwas introduced to Amsterdam audiences in 1908. A period of particularly intense interest in Bruckner began with Eduard van Beinum, who was appointed the Concertgebouw’s second conductor in 1931 and who once said of the composer: ‘Bruckner is my daily bread. I can never get enough of his music.’
Many outstanding performances of Bruckner’s symphonies too place under van Beinum’s baton, although they continued to be based on the seriously deficient first editions of the scores. Only slowly was Robert Haas’s old Bruckner Edition of the 1930s adopted.
In the sixties, Eugen Jochum and Bernard Haitink showed themselves to be Brucknerians of the first rank. While Jochum soon came to prefer Nowak’s new edition, Haitink remained loyal to Haas. Haitink was succeeded in 1988 by Riccardo Chailly, who has continued the Concertgebouw’s longstanding – and outstanding – Bruckner tradition.
Erich W. Partsch
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TRACK LISTING:
Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) – Symphony No. 3 in D Minor – “Wagner”
Gemäßigt, mehr bewegt, misterioso – 19:29
Andante: Bewegt, feierlich, quasi Adagio – 13:26
Scherzo: Zeimlich schnell – 7:02
Finale: Allegro – 14:37
FINAL THOUGHT:
Insanely long liner notes not withstanding, Bruckner’s Third Symphony is the one that turned the world in favor of Bruckner. And, thank God. If Bruckner’s 6th didn’t exist – it would have really sucked.
Male Voices: Rundfunkchor Berlin and the Ernst-Senff-Chor
Berliner Philharmoniker
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ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
A nice performance of a ‘meh’ Symphony (which, I believe, would have been Bruckner’s review as well).
Anton Bruckner
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES – Sebastian Urmoneit (Translation Stewart Spencer)
Dating from 1865/66, Bruckner’s C minor Symphony was the Austrian composer’s first attempt to explore a field which, in the minds of all 19th-century composers of instrumental music, represented the ultimate challenge.
Neither his “Study Symphony” in F Minor, nor his D Minor Symphony which he himself later “nullified,” satisfied the high standards he set himself and that he expected of the genre.
As we know, Brahms, too, hesitated long and hard before publishing a symphony, and by the time that his first contribution to the medium was unveiled, he was already well established as a composer.
Bruckner, by contrast, was barely known outside Linz in the mid-1860s, even though he had already completed two Masses. According to his own later account, it was the local music critic, Moritz von Mayfeld, who encouraged him to explore the world of the symphony, a world to which Bruckner was to remain loyal for the whole of the rest of his life.
Mayfeld ended his review of the first performance of Bruckner’s D minor Mass with the words: “Such is his unusually fertile imagination and his musical and technical knowledge that it is hard to predict where he may go from here. But one thing is certain, namely, that he will very soon cultivate the field of the symphony and to do so, moreover, with the greatest success.”
Anton Bruckner
We know that from at least the time of his studies with the Linz Kappelmeister, Otto Kitzler, Bruckner was not only familiar with the music of Beethoven but had also been introduced to the opera of Wagner through a performance of “Tannhauser” that Kitzler conducted at the theatre in the town.
From Beethoven, Bruckner took over the symphony’s four-movement structure and even left untouched the distinctive character of all four of those movements: First movement Sonataform – Adagio– Scherzo– Finale.
From his First Symphony onwards, however, he based his symphonic expositions not one two subjects but on three; a compositional device previously found to such a clearly developed extent only in Schubert’s “Great” C Major Symphony.
A comparison between the two First Symphonies of Bruckner and Brahms shows certain similarities; not only are both in C Minor, but the sombre tonality of the opening is brightened in their final movements, both of which are in C Major.
In each case, the model is Beethoven’s Fifth. More striking than their similarities, however, are their dissimilarities, not least in their approach to the whole history of the genre.
Daniel Barenboim
In order for it to be fully understood, Brahms’ First Symphony seems to presuppose two whole centuries of music history as a living force, whereas Bruckner approached his task with an almost naïve insouciance, seeming not to suffer from the oppressive weight of tradition.
While his First Symphony is far from denying the age in which it was written, no other composer of his stature has been able to animate the elemental forces of rhythm and melody with such unrefracted immediacy and – at least in his First Symphony – to fall back so nonchalantly on Wagner’s harmonic innovations.
The German musicologist Stefan Kuntz has characterized this note of purity in early Bruckner by reference to a remark of Nietzsche’s which, although written with Wagner in mind, is undoubtedly better suited, in Kunze’s view, to Bruckner: “He who desired to liberate art, to restore its desecrated sanctity, would first have to have liberated himself from the modern soul; only when innocent himself could he discover the innocence of art.”(Untimely Meditations: Richard Wagner in Bayreuth.)
This natural simplicity of tone is a feature, above all, of the original Linz version of the symphony, a more elemental account of the piece that Bruckner later revised in 1890/91 to produce the so-called Vienna version of the work.
Rundfunkchor Berlin
The symphonic chorus Helgolandfor male-voice choir and orchestra was Bruckner’s last completed composition. The only other piece on which he worked after 1893 was his Ninth Symphony, which was to remain unfinished at his death.
Although Helgolandis little known today, it is clear from Bruckner’s last will and testament that he himself numbered it among his most important works, worth – in his opinion – of being ranked alongside his nine symphonies, three Masses, String Quintet, Te Deum and his setting of Psalm 150.
Bruckner was happy to accept the commission to write Helgolandand broke off work on his Ninth Symphonyin order to concentrate on a piece that he hoped would increase his standing in musical circles. It was written to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Vienna Male-Voice Choir, a celebration that the Emperor Franz Joseph I was to attend in person.
Its first performance on 8 October 1893 proved one of the great triumphs in Bruckner’s career. It is no longer possible to say with any certainty whether the decision to set the ballad by August Silberstein (1827-1900) was Bruckner’s own or whether that decision was taken by others.
The poem breathes the spirit of German nationalism that typified the educated Austrian bourgeoisie from the mid-19th century onwards and which singing societies – the Liedertafelnof the time – made it their duty to promulgate.
Ernst-Senff-Chor Berlin
Silberstein was numbered among the student dissidents of 1848 and driven into exile, settling in Vienna in 1856 and making his living as a journalist and occasional poet.
Silberstein’s ballade Helgolandis taken from an anthology, Mein Herz in Liedern, first published in 1868 and describes the threat posed to the island of Helgoland by a fleet of Roman warships. The Saxon islanders call on Heaven to help them, and assistance is duly provided in the form of a raging tempest. The pagan invasion is repulsed, and the Germanic people thank God for their deliverance.
The events depicted in the poem are purely fictional: the Romans never reached Helgoland, and the inhabitants of the island had not been converted to Christianity at the time of the Romans‘ wars of conquest.
Bruckner can have had no more time for such historical inaccuracies than for the contradictory claim that Catholicism is incompatible with national interests; in the apotheosis of Christianity in the hymn at the end of the ballad there seems like doubt that he grasped the underlying message.
The setting of the very last line, “O Herrgott, dich prieset frei Helgoland!” (O Lord God, free Helgoland glorifies thee), in which Bruckner modulates from G minor to the higher G major, is the most spacious in the whole work.
Berliner Philharmoniker
TRACK LISTING:
Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) – Symphony No. 1 in C Minor
Allegro- 12:49
Adagio – 13:36
Scherzo – 9:21
Finale, Bewegt, feurig – 14:00
Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) – “Helgoland”
“Helgoland” – 11:14
FINAL THOUGHT:
This is the first disc of Daniel Barenboim and the Berliner Philharmoniker’s massive (and pretty great) Bruckner Symphony Cycle. I have this disc as a one-off and not the entire box – so, going forward, it will be a mix and great (and not so great) performances of the Bruckner symphonies (and other works). I will just say this, I’m glad Anton B.kept writing after Symphony #1!