It was a debut that will long be remembered. It was in October 2006 that Yannick Nezet-Seguin first conducted the Dresden Staatskapelle, which with its invitations to younger conductors in particular was increasingly emerging “as a talent scout for the next generation of baton-wielders” (German daily Die Welt). The 31-year-old newcoming, whose very name was a tonguetwister for most, had hitherto attracted the most attention in his native Canada; since 2000 he had been directing the Orchestre Metropolitain, little brother of the Orchestre Symphonique in his birthplace of Montreal. After debuts with orchestras in Toulouse, Goteborg and Birmingham, he was now in the Semperoper, standing for the first time in his life before one of Europe’s long-established, tradition-steeped orchestras. Nezet-Seguin was no disappointment. In fact, he was just the opposite. Straight away at rehearsals, it was obvious that this young man knew exactly what he wanted in works by Britten, Ravel and Shostakovich; in concerts, he was in full command of musicians and audience alike with his energetic and precise conducting manner, his sens of sound and rhythmic structures. Word soon got around that news of “the Great Canadian Conductor for whom this country’s classical music buffs have been waiting” (Toronto Star) was more than a mere marketing device. And people believed him when he admitted that conducting had been “like a vocation” for him ever since he was ten years old. “Today I have the feeling that I am living the dream I had as a little boy,” he confessed.
•Bruckner's last mass is a masterpiece. Rooted in the traditional Austrian mass, it also contains symphonic elements found only in Beethoven's Missa solemnis, although Mahler can be seen on the horizon. Premiered in Vienna in 1872 to immense acclaim, the work is now performed both in the liturgy and in concert, a permanent part of the repertoire. In contrast to the monumental symphonies, here we encounter a very special soundscape, reaching from soft ethereal sounds to jubilant surges
Venzago typically employs brisk tempos, transparent textures, distinctive brass and woodwind sonorities, and strings played with minimal vibrato. This is a fresh take on Bruckner's music, and Venzago avoids the excessive heaviness and reverence that many 20th century conductors imposed on his works. These streamlined readings may not persuade traditionalists, but the startling performances in this CPO box set may well change the way we think of these symphonies in the future. This ten-CD collection also includes a bonus DVD of Laurent Jaquet's film Venzago's Bruckner.
Bruchner: Symphony No. 7 / Hindemith, Stuttgart Radio Symphony
SWR
CD
$13.99May 11, 2018
Paul Hindemith was an all-round musician. He had a near-professional command of most orchestral instruments, which naturally served as an excellent prerequisite for both composing and conducting. His prominence as a composer meant that the best and most famous orchestras were happy to have him as a conductor, which is why he regularly took to the podium with outstanding ensembles. In the studio, he always conducted his own works, recording them for labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, CBS and Decca. His work as a conductor in the concert hall and his occasional radio studio performances were much more varied, as with the present recording. When we hear Hindemith conducting Bruckner in 1958, we should bear in mind that a grand master is at work, unsurpassed in contrapuntal expertise and musical invention, the product of a vibrant tradition extending from Schütz and Bach to Mozart and Beethoven, and on to Brahms and Reger. Bruckner was a high point on this route from the Baroque to his own contemporary output.
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 / Sanderling, Stuttgart Radio Symphony
SWR
CD
$13.99Feb 09, 2018
This is a re-release of an SWRmusic-Bestseller. It contains Bruckner‘s most famous symphony heard in an outstanding interpretation. Kurt Sanderling, at that moment already 83 years old, fully demonstrates the experience gained from his long career, at his side an SWR Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart performing at the highest level. More than just a resident of Berlin, Kurt Sanderling has always been very closely connected with the city. It was here that he began his artistic career as voice coach at the Stadtische Oper at the age of eighteen, when Otto Klemperer, Erich Kleiber, Leo Blech and Wilhelm Furtwangler were conducting. Sanderlings guest tours took him almost everywhere in Eastern and Western Europe, to Japan, and the USA, where he conducted the world’s leading ensembles.
We continue our astonishing Bruckner cycle with the rarely performed 2nd Symphony. As in the case in the 1st, Venzago has chosen a top orchestra of relatively small instrumental dimensions. 'After the many new recordings of the Bruckner symphonies, finally an interpretation that genuinely exhibits character and in a very musical way offers the listener the opportunity to complement his picture of Bruckner'(Pizzicato 3/12).
Pizzicato 9/12: “Venzago’s courage to interpret Bruckner more romantically than post-romantically makes sense because the 2nd symphony suddenly develops a life of its own and enthuses the listener with its own stylistic musicality. This is certainly one of the best recordings of this composition!”
As the highlight of the Bruckner Year 2024, Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 was performed by the Altomonte Orchestra St. Florian under Rémy Ballot on the occasion of the Brucknertage St. Florian. The special feature of this evening was the presentation of the recovered sketches from the Finale, which were played in their rough-draft form and without special arrangement. Work on the Finale was already far advanced at the time of Bruckner's death on October 11, 1886; among the fragments are, among other things, the beginning of the movement, the first, second and third main themes, parts of a development section, and the aforementioned three themes in the recapitulation-partly as a short-score sketch, partly as completely orchestrated passages. Performing these fragments allows one only to imagine what monument Anton Bruckner would have erected once again with the Finale of his Ninth Symphony. This memorable evening can now be experienced by the music world.
Bruckner's symphonies form the backbone of Late Romantic symphonic music. Indeed, he can be said to have reinvented the symphony – something that not even Liszt or Wagner had dared to do in the wake of the groundbreaking masterpieces by Beethoven that until then had ranked as the climax and end-point of the genre. It was Bruckner and, somewhat later, Brahms who sought and found new methods of reviving the symphonic genre and developing it further. In this regard, Bruckner's approach was entirely new.
From the outset, he relied on the sound of the large orchestra, and rather than mixing the individual groups of instruments he tended to either separate them from each other or couple them together like organ registers. Terraced dynamics, that is, the immediate juxtaposition of piano and forte without transition, was also something Bruckner derived from the organ. As a church musician, he had close contact with these and other elements of Baroque music, and they flowed into his symphonies.
As far as dramaturgical development was concerned, he tended to favor Schubert; indeed, it was the organic continuation and alternating interconnection of themes Bruckner had learned from Schubert that also explains the unprecedented performance length of his symphonies.
Bruckner's Nine Symphonies are a constant in the repertoire of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, as in those of all major orchestras. The special feature of the release being presented here by BR KLASSIK is that the recordings are conducted by not only one but a total of four conductors closely associated with the orchestra, all of them proven international Bruckner experts. More than in any other compilation, common features in interpretation (also due to the same orchestra) as well as fascinating differences due to the various interpretive approaches of the respective conductors can all be detected. In these recordings it also becomes clear what brilliant contributions Herbert Blomstedt, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons and Lorin Maazel have made over the decades to Bruckner’s symphonic oeuvre.
REVIEW:
Here we have a marvelous collection of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies Nos. 1-9 played by the Bavarian Radio Symphony under the baton of four outstanding conductors. Lorin Maazel recorded the first two symphonies in 1999. He does not provide any new insights, but the performances are thrilling nevertheless. The fifth and sixth symphonies with Haitink are also wonderful interpretations, but Blomstedt’s Ninth and the recordings with Jansons are more fluent and warmer than the other performances. Blomstedt offers an interpretation aimed at salvation, without any fear of death. This positive view is good for the music, but also enables profound moments of contemplation. For Jansons one could summarize and say that Jansons inspires his orchestra to a breathtakingly intense playing. From the very beginning one feels the strong lyrical and luminous power providing an eloquent, rhetoric performance.
Claudio Abbado formed the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in 2003 after his return to musical life following successful treatment for stomach cancer. His appearances each summer with this group, built upon the core of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra plus first-chair players from many top ensembles, are highly anticipated events. So, when Lucerne videos are released during the year following a festival, it’s like returning to a favorite summer vacation town. What’s the same? What’s changed? As the cameras scan the orchestra, we see that the older female cellist (Natalia Gutman) is missing, but many other familiar faces are back, including violist Wolfram Christ, flutist Jacques Zoon, and the eccentric-appearing principal trumpet (Reinhold Friedrich, who, for some reason, is permitted to wear an extravagant velvet jacket and as a result looks like a cross between Ben Franklin and a circa 1910 patent medicine salesman). Plus, as always, there is a healthy number of young musicians who must be marveling at their good fortune to be participating in such an extraordinary endeavor. Because of the degree of continuity from year to year, a strong sense of artistic purpose and, of course, the man on the podium, the orchestra consistently performs at a level equal to the very best permanent ensembles on earth, even though they are together only relatively briefly each summer.
Bruckner’s Symphony No. 5 is a work that can be condescended to. If a conductor begins with the premise that the Fifth is a piece that—however powerful and popular—is constructed from simplistic elements and lacking refinement, well … you’ll get a performance that’s simplistic and unrefined. Abbado finds layers and layers of nuance and meaning in the symphony. (Benjamin Zander is another conductor who shows the work a similar respect.) Any aura of ritual or of a grinding symphonic machine is banished and something much more organic is in evidence; it’s less a sonic cathedral (to use the standard Bruckner cliché) and more of a Beethovenian or Mahlerian evocation of the natural world. The chorales—strings in the second movement or the “11 apostles” in the Finale—are thankfully shorn of any Hollywood religiosity and just seem to blossom inevitably from musical seeds planted much earlier on. Abbado leads the Scherzo with exceptional lift and lightness, but still allows the obsessive quality to come through without nearly as much hard-headedness—the “country bumpkin” cliché—as is often the case. And then there are the felicities provided by all those world-class instrumentalists. For just one example, listen to the seamless manner with which phrases are passed from horn to oboe to flute at the very end of the second movement.
The sound is glorious in stereo and, especially, with multichannel—richly sonorous, dynamic, detailed, and dimensional. I’ve never witnessed a large audience listen so quietly before; everyone present in the Concert Hall of KKL Luzern for the two performances generating this video last August knew, I’m sure, that they were witnessing something special. They seem afraid to breathe, much less cough or fidget in their seats. As has become the custom, flowers rain down on the performers after the concert’s conclusion. The audience rises to its feet, something that doesn’t happen all that often in Europe (as opposed to the U.S., where every performance, however routine, typically gets a standing ovation). Abbado will be 80 next year and he looks well. Here’s hoping there are many more of these Blu-ray treasures to come.
Bruckner’s famous “Romantic” Symphony No. 4 forms the prelude to a spectacular DVD series from Accentus Music and Unitel Classica, exploring Bruckner’s symphonic cosmos. Recorded live at Philharmonie Berlin on 20 June 2010, Der Tagesspiegel describes Barenboim’s Bruckner as ‘… conceived and performed very theatrically, like an opera without words.”
Live Recording from the Lucerne Festival, Summer 2011
‘Abbado’s approach to the music of Bruckner is soft and songlike, at times tense and urgent, but constantly filled with warmth of feeling’ – not only the Neue Zürcher Zeitung is full of praise when Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra play Bruckner. Their interpretation of his awe-inspiring Fifth Symphony reflects the composer’s burgeoning powers and exquisite compositional artistry. As The Guardian poetically states: ‘The composer himself, one suspects, might have leapt to embrace Abbado as an ideal interpreter.’
The main interest here will be in William Carragan’s completion of Bruckner’s extensive sketches for the finale of the Ninth. The completion supplies architectural context for the first three movements, thus providing a valuable corrective to posterity’s deeply ingrained perception of this symphony as “unfinished,” like Schubert’s Eighth (coincidentally, both “ending” with a slow movement in an exotic, otherworldly E Major). That said, I find myself ambivalent about the enterprise for two reasons. First, the quality of the existing music: Although Bruckner left a lot of the movement in a relatively advanced state of sketching—the complete exposition and substantial portions of the development and recapitulation—much of the thematic content itself nevertheless leaves an arid, underdeveloped impression that (to my ears) fails to approach the level of the preceding movements. If he had lived to do more with it, he would surely have transformed it far beyond its existing state. More seriously, much of the movement is completely missing (including all of the coda); in contrast to the finale of Mahler’s 10th, we lack any kind of comprehensive blueprint to work with, in the form of a continuity draft for the entire movement. Carragan’s completion comes into competition with an alternative one by Nicola Samale and Giuseppe Mazzuca, which has been recorded by Eliahu Inbal and the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra (Teldec). Given the lack of any concrete sketches for the coda, any conjectural realization will effectively be an original composition. Carragan’s coda is longer and more imposing than Samale-Mazzuca’s, using, in addition to thematic recalls from the first movement, references to the first movement of the Eighth, as well as borrowing the chorale-apotheosis strategy from the finale of the Fifth.
This performance is billed as the recorded premiere of Carragan’s 2010 revision, but his own notes don’t offer any information on how it differs from his earlier version. That was recorded in 1996 by Yoav Talmi with the Oslo Philharmonic (Chandos), but since I don’t know that recording I can’t comment on differences. In any event I’m glad to have both the Carragan and Samale-Mazzuca completions. Another tack is taken by Harnoncourt and the Vienna Philharmonic (RCA, live), who present Bruckner’s sketches in the format of a lecture-recital, without adding anything (spoken commentary in both German and English)—here, I must confess I find their breaking off with the end of the sketches a more moving experience than anyone’s entirely conjectural original composing.
So there’s much of interest here, although I would have thought that a release of the Ninth alone might have been a more competitive proposition—how many prospective purchasers will really want yet another Fourth and Seventh played by a less-than household-name conductor and orchestra?
Happily, the performances are consistently fine ones that will grace any Bruckner collection. The Philharmonie Festiva is none other than the famous Munich Bach Orchestra, augmented for the purpose by players from the other Munich orchestras. They make a handsome sound—rich, sweet, recognizably Bavarian. The recorded acoustic (the Abbey Church in Ebrach) is ideal for Bruckner, reverberant but with plenty of bite and detail.
The Fourth is lyrically shaped with a natural flow, played straight with little deviation from the initially established tempos, though by no means inflexible. There are many imaginative details, starting with the evocatively tapered horn phrases at the opening. Indeed, the brass playing throughout is of exceptional quality, conjuring the work’s forest atmosphere most effectively. I occasionally miss the stronger interpretive profile of the great Bruckner conductors of the present and recent past (e.g., Abbado, Dohnányi, Harnoncourt, Wand)—as in the Andante, whose grey expanses don’t have quite enough tension to my ears.
The Seventh also goes beautifully, with a singing intensity, transparent textures, and an atmospheric first-movement coda. The Adagio has an attractive quality of breathing spontaneity, and an ear-catching sheer beauty of sound, from the thrilling amplitude of the C-Major climax to the purple-hued low brass in the coda. Schaller captures the Scherzo’s rustic Schwung in rich colors and biting detail, while his finale is less febrile than usual (13:00) with perhaps just a hint of stolidity.
As for the familiar portion of the Ninth, the first movement is beautifully lucid with much absorbing textural detail—for example, in the thickly scored stretches of the exposition’s closing section (Rehearsal G ff.), or the nightmarish march episode inserted into the recapitulation (Rehearsal O ff., A?-Minor). Altogether the music’s keel comes across as slightly too even, including a noticeable tendency to smooth out Bruckner’s injunctions to short articulations (for instance, in the quickening woodwind figure at Rehearsal A, along with the preceding violin motive in quarter notes, mm. 28 ff.). The Scherzo is taken slower, and is less demonic in character, than usual, but still very powerful in its smooth, weighty way. The E-Major Adagio is straight, lucid, and lyrical, well shaped and sonorously imposing, if expressively less febrile than some.
Overall, these are high-quality performances of much distinction, and the rarity of Carragan’s completion makes the set a desirable proposition for Bruckner collectors.
FANFARE: Boyd Pomeroy
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These performances were given at the Ebrach Summer Music Festival as part of the Bruckner Festival in 2007, 2008 and 2010. In co-operation with Bavarian Radio the recordings were made in the glorious setting of the Ebrach Abbey church in Bavaria which on this evidence has a splendid acoustic.
The Philharmonie Festiva may be a new name to many readers. This is a highly accomplished orchestra comprising mainly members of the Munich Bach Soloists augmented by musicians from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic. Taking the baton is Bamberg-born conductor Gerd Schaller who is the founder and musical director of the Ebrach Summer Music Festival.
The performance of the Ninth Symphony contains the first recording of the revised 2010 version of the finale completed by William Carragan. Carragan is a contributing editor of the Anton Bruckner Collected Edition and has prepared a new edition of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 2. From 1979 to 1983 he worked on a finale for the Bruckner Ninth. That first completion can be heard from the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yoav Talmi on Chandos CHAN 8468/9 but revisions also followed in 2003 and 2006.
Composed in 1874, the Symphony No. 4 in E flat major, known as the Romantic, has been given wholesale revisions at various times. The 1878/1880 version recorded on this disc has been described by composer and musicologist Robert Simpson as, “ clean and lean”. The memorable opening under Gerd Schaller is marvellously done; immediately convincing. Schaller’s pacing is impressive navigating the flow and broad sweep of the writing with broad assurance. The horns have a significant part throughout and the Philharmonie Festiva brass is in impressive form displaying a burnished tone.
Composed in 1881-83, the Symphony No. 7 in E major is the most popular of Bruckner’s symphonies and it brought the composer the greatest success he had known. It was Arthur Nikisch who conducted the première at Leipzig in 1884. Schaller attains great nobility in a performance that leaves a powerful effect. The orchestral climaxes are remarkable with Schaller astutely building the tension from calm hush to furious climax.
Bruckner was working on his Symphony No. 9 in D minor at the time of his death in 1896. The first three movements were completed with sketches left for a fourth. Bruckner said, “ I have served my purpose of earth; I have done what I could, and there is only one thing I would still like to be granted: the strength to finish my Ninth Symphony.” At Bruckner’s own suggestion the unfinished symphony was often performed with the Te deum serving as the final movement. For this Ebrach Abbey performance Schaller uses the revised 2010 version of the final movement as completed by William Carragan. In this reading I was struck how confidently Schaller demonstrates a real understanding of the score’s structure. There’s a splendid clarity about his reading. In addition I love the way Schaller emphasises the spiritual qualities especially in the gloriously played second movement Adagio.
This is a really impressive release. The engineers have done a remarkable job providing a clear, well-balanced sound. There are decent notes in the booklet. Carragan’s completion of the Ninth Symphony is an added attraction.
Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 - Premiere Recording Of Finale Completed By Nors S. Josephson
Danacord
CD
$18.99Mar 02, 2018
This new release, featuring a truly sensational Bruckner 9, is the premiere recording of the finale completed by Nors Josephson. Josephson writes of this release: “The present edition of the finale to Anton Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony is the result of a ten year-long project. I have utilised the sketches and score sketches to this movement that are found in the Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, Austria, the Viennese Stadt-und Landesbibliothek and the Viennese Hochschule fur Musik und darstellende Kunst; all of these institutions kindly provided me with microfilms and photographic copies of these sources. In addition, Alfred Orel’s 1934 edition of most of these sources as part of the Bruckner Complete Works was of particular value. Thanks go to the Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna for sending me a copy of this edition.” Conductor John Gibbons brings a transparent and insightful interpretation to the entire work.
For this CD a chronological cross-section of Anton Bruckner's work was chosen for the recorded concert, from the very first composition of an 11 year-old, a Pange lingua, to the late Vexilla Regis. It's often hard to define Bruckner's musical roots and origins, since his first symphony already bears his unmistakable stamp, but some of these seldom performed early sacred works, still prescribing to 18th and early-19th c. Upper Austrian church tradition, can give an idea of his musical background. The chorale melodies, by Bruckner himself, display typical Alpine regional melodic attributes.
![Bruckner: Symphony No 5 / Abbado, Lucerne Festival Orchestra [blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/1987224.jpg?v=1790726657&width=800)
![Bruckner: Symphony No 5 / Abbado, Lucerne Festival Orchestra [blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/51N-BmFk_RL.jpg?v=1790726657&width=800)
![Bruckner: Symphony No 5 / Abbado, Lucerne Festival Orchestra [blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/1987224.jpg?v=1790726657&width=400)
