Forum BAL : Bruckner 9

[ostuni]

I imprinted on this through the BBC Music Mag's covermount BBCPO/Klee. The vast Liverpool Cathedral echo is marvellous for some of those big silences (though it doesn't do much for the scherzo's clarity!). Isn't there a Wand recorded in Linz cathedral or somewhere similar - or am I thinking of 8? And the much admired Walter was the second version I bought - but I had to give it away. Partly because the acoustic is so much the opposite of Klee (hardly any atmosphere, any space). But mostly because I can't bear to listen to the flutes going wrong in the finale: it's the sort of mistake than once you've heard it, looms ever bigger on repeated listenings.

Since then, I've bought far too many versions (I seem to have 12 listed in my score). I love Giulini's opulence, Skrowaczewski's mix of clarity & richness. Kubelik (Bayerischer Rundfunk on Orfeo) is rather special. Jochum's Dresden brass is often crude, and the trumpet horribly wobbly, but I like his Berlin. I must listen again to Barenboim (Berlin) & Luisi, my 2 most recent purchases.

[Bryn]

Ah yes, I remember that early cover mount CD. I must give it another spin. As I recall it had a brief but annoying drop-out. I got it replaced, but the second copy had the same fault.

[ahinton]

The live Karajan that appears on that Andante set dates from 1978 and I believe it to be taken from the same, or same sequence of performances, as the DVD that appeared a couple or so years ago. I find the Andante performance to be in poorer sound than the incandescent 1976. Incidentally, the 1976 Bruckner 7 from Karl Bohm included on that set is superb, a truly great performance.

I have no truck with so-called 'completions' of the 9th. The three movements bequeathed to us by Bruckner are a satisfying emotional experience in their own right.

They might be to you (and there's no denying that they are utterly wonderful) but they're not to me; every time I've heard the work in the three-movement "version" I feel profoundly short-changed.

[Bryn]

They might be to you (and there's no denying that they are utterly wonderful) but they're not to me; every time I've heard the work in the three-movement "version" I feel profoundly short-changed.

Agreed. Bruckner has made considerable progress with the finale. Over 85% of the most recent completion of the final movement by Samale/Mazzuca/Phillips/Cohrs was composed or directly derived from sketches for the finale by Bruckner himself. Far better that the general listener be able to hear Bruckners work on the finale in such a form than for only academe to have access to it via printed matter. Of course it is not the finale as Bruckner would have competed it. It does not pretend to be so, but he certainly did intend there to be a finale. I regard the anti-completion lobby in this case, as with Mahler's 10th, as exhibiting a particularly sniffy form of musical snobbery. I wonder if such lobbyists would also seek to deny followers of the Christian religion the right to read what has been cobbled together over the centuries, from a multritude of sources of varying provenance, into what is now know as The Bible?

[ahinton]

Agreed. Bruckner has made considerable progress with the finale. Over 85% of the most recent completion of the final movement by Samale/Mazzuca/Phillips/Cohrs was composed or directly derived from sketches for the finale by Bruckner himself. Far better that the general listener be able to hear Bruckners work on the finale in such a form than for only academe to have access to it via printed matter. Of course it is not the finale as Bruckner would have competed it. It does not pretend to be so, but he certainly did intend there to be a finale. I regard the anti-completion lobby in this case, as with Mahler's 10th, as exhibiting a particularly sniffy form of musical snobbery. I wonder if such lobbyists would also seek to deny followers of the Christian religion the right to read what has been cobbled together over the centuries, from a multritude of sources of varying provenance, into what is now know as The Bible?

Many years ago, it was thought by some that Bruckner had left very little material for this finale and, of course, there would have to be sufficient to warrant attempts at a realisation, but more recently a good deal more such material has turned up and Cohrs himself apparently believes that there is quite abit more, so if all the available material does finally "materialise", there will be further work to be done in improving and expanding on the completion attempts that have already been made. For those interested, here is a link - http://www.abruckner.com/articles/ar...vandermeijden/ - from which can be downloaded a .pdf of an interesting article in English by a Dutchman who is not a professional musician but who nevertheless sheds interesting light on the major completion attempts and offers ample justification for them and for not accepting this monumental work as the three-movement torso that so many have for so long taken for granted.

[vinteuil]

a particularly sniffy form of musical snobbery. I wonder if such lobbyists would also seek to deny followers of the Christian religion the right to read what has been cobbled together over the centuries, from a multritude of sources of varying provenance, into what is now know as The Bible?

Bryn - I partly agree with you as far as the musical snobbery argument goes. As far as the Bible is concerned, I think Christians would tell you that the 'cobbling together over the centuries' was conducted under the active continuing influence of the Third Person of the Trinity, Who could be assumed to know what He was about, and that the end product is therefore a coherent work... (Their position, I hasten to add - not mine... )

[Bryn]

A fair point, vinteuil. If only Rosemary Brown had been involved with Samale et al perhaps similar claims might have been made re. their work on what has so far been uncovered of what Bruckner left of his work on the final of the 9th.

[amateur51]

Is there a commercially-available performance including the 4th movement completion? Sounds a fascinating enterprise

[amateur51]

The idea is not Haitink's but Van Beinum's originally. If you can put hand on Van Beinum's recording of Bruckner 9 you will find the same timpani accentuations (plus additions at the end of the slow movement btw too, a pure Van Beinum addition in that case!). But a brilliant idea it is.

Fascinating insight Roehre! Great that Haitink picked up the master's thread & perpetuated it - I wonder if he still does it in 'live' performances

[aeolium]

I don't think the completion question is so black and white that those who only want to hear works fully completed by the composer are to be dismissed as guilty of musical snobbery. That is surely a perfectly valid choice. The analogy with the Bible doesn't hold since the latter does not purport to be a single authorial voice and, in the New Testament, has multiple accounts by different individuals of the same events. Yet with a composer such as Mahler or Bruckner, a single authorial identity is all important to the character of the work, not only in the structure of the work but the detail (especially Mahler the detail of whose orchestration was so phenomenally precise). However dedicated and scholarly the work of the completers, their work inevitably diffuses the individual identity of the composition.

I think it is good that there are completed or performing versions of unfinished works such as Schubert's 7th symphony, the various completions of Mozart's Requiem and indeed the completions of Mahler 10 and Bruckner 9. At the very least they allow the musical ideas that were put down by the composer to be heard even though they were left in an unfinished state. But there is a risk that the completed version assumes the same status as other works of the composer that were completed by him - I think this has effectively happened with Mozart's Requiem in the Sussmayr completion, and has virtually happened with Mahler 10 in the Cooke performing version. I think it's reasonable at least to question whether this does justice to the composer or those who want to hear music that he alone has written.