BRUCKNER String Quintet. 1 String Quartet. Intermezzo in d. 1 Rondo in c • Fine Arts Qrt; Gil Sharon (va) 1 • NAXOS 8.570788 (78.50)


When the Bruckner revival was in full swing a few decades ago, this writer was never entirely smitten, and to this day I wince when he and Mahler are combined in casual conversation, since the style and quality of their music is so utterly different. Bruckner’s limited chamber music output hasn’t found much of a home in the repertoire of top-tier ensembles, but there is enough to make a cautious judgment, and the latest entry from Naxos might help some to examine this lonely corner of the repertoire.


Given my prejudices, I might not be expected to gush over this new disc of Bruckner’s Quintet in F Major and Quartet in C Minor by the Fine Arts Quartet, and I won’t. The performances are quite good and lovingly delivered, but the same qualities I have always considered weaknesses (utterly predictable phrase patterns and melodic sequences, unjustified repetitions, etc.) are in full bloom here as well, characteristics magnified by the absent splendor of a grand orchestra creating great masses of sonic beauty, which I believe too often masks a dearth of ideas and creative paths through the material. Despite my harsh minority view of the topic, I would not recommend relegating this disc to the garbage heap. In fact, there are intermittent pleasures here and there that might please the casual Bruckner listener and delight his more ardent admirers.


Posterity is certainly wise to give greater value to the mature Quintet over the youthful and rather thinly realized Quartet. Composed around the time of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies (1879), the Quintet sounds like one of his symphonic monuments, though it is a bit shorter and requires more nimble and intimate passagework from the performers, particularly the first violin. Some familiar harmonic patterns are present, and I detect some melodic snippets reminiscent of chamber works from Schumann (the “falling fifth,” for example). There is a fair amount of counterpoint, especially in the development section of the first movement. The Scherzo is one of the stronger movements on the disc, and is spun with a classical lightness that occasionally brings to mind Mendelssohn. There is even a touch of humor here and there, not an attribute Bruckner is known for. Not surprisingly for the über -revisionist Austrian, there is an alternative to the Scherzo, a rather pleasant Intermezzo, handily included on the disc for those inclined to judge for themselves.


The Adagio from the Quintet is sometimes heard in a transcription for string orchestra, a setting for which it seems more suited. Its lyrical, tender, and extended themes are among the composer’s finest, and there are occasions when the clarity of five players lends a touching intimacy not possible in massed strings.


The Quartet was discovered only in 1949 in a sketchbook of works from his student years. This is a much more reticent composer, content to remain well within the models of quartet composition inherited from his predecessors, a tendency most notable in the Scherzo. His attempts at Romantic-era duress seem strained, but there are some catchy tunes, especially in the supple and tender Andante.


I haven’t heard many of the dozen or so recordings of the Quintet, but you’re unlikely to find one much better than this finely executed and clearly recorded disc; doubly so for the far rarer Quartet. The Fine Arts Quartet gives a warmly expressive and carefully calibrated reading, joined by the fine violist Gil Sharon in the Quintet.


FANFARE: Michael Cameron

BRUCKNER: MASS IN E, ETC BERN

There’s no question that the late Georg Tintner was a great Brucknerian, even if some of his textual decisions, such as his preference for the patently inferior first version of the Eighth Symphony, with its minimalistically repetitive scherzo (sound clip), necessarily make this set one to own alongside other, more traditional approaches. On the other hand, put this together with Skrowaczewski’s Oehms set, also at budget price, and you can have two superb, hugely different Bruckner cycles for a very reasonable outlay.

And whether or not you agree with all of Tintner’s decisions with respect to editions, there’s no question that he justifies his choices by delivering what are arguably the best performances available of the alternative in question. This is true of that Eighth, and even more so of his astonishing Third, one of the very greatest Bruckner performances ever committed to disc. Also noteworthy: superb versions of the Seventh, Fourth, and First. The two early works, “0? and “00?, need to be played as well as they are here. They are not great Bruckner, but Tintner’s commitment carries the day.

The orchestras involved aren’t traditional “Bruckner orchestras” either, and so lack that characteristic rich string sound and dark-toned brass–but even this contributes to rather than detracts from Tintner’s distinctive vision, and the playing is never less than up to Bruckner’s demands. You also get the 1878 “Volksfest” finale to the Fourth Symphony, plus a bonus CD containing a very personal discussion by Tintner of Bruckner’s music. Sonically, these are also some of Naxos’ finest efforts, making this box an essential purchase for anyone who loves Bruckner and who missed these performances the first time around.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The program of this literary reading with music gives us insight into Anton Bruckner’s correspondence, beginning with the first three extant letters from the year 1852, during his years in Upper Austria and particularly during his time as the parish organist at Old Cathedral in Linz from 1855 to 1868. The selected writings reveal much about the self-presentation and self-image of the musician and composer who never ceased studying. Lesser-known lieder and piano works by Bruckner allow us audibly to trace the composer’s development in the period between 1850 and 1868. In the intertwining of his words with his works, a multifaceted and surprisingly sophisticated yet uncommon image of Bruckner’s “hidden personality” (Elisabeth Maier) is revealed.

After the celebrated start of the series "B�ck reads Bruckner" provided insights into the Upper Austrian period of life and the composer's self-image, the second reading with music was dedicated, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, to Anton Bruckner's decades-long, clearly unsuccessful search for a wife. Using extant letters to and from them, it introduces some of the ladies earmarked as Bruckner's significant other and thematizes the "downright absurd numbers of rash marriage proposals" (Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen) by the eternal bachelor. It likewise introduces letters in which female admirers of the composer, who had meanwhile achieved fame and recognition, made advances at him. Among other selected pieces, the letters are framed and commented on musically by piano pieces and songs with piano accompaniment from the so-called "Kitzler-Studienbuch" (Kitzler Study Book), which contains works and drafts which show Bruckner on his way to developing his individual style.

The present release is a special live recording of the Staatskapelle Dresden's 1st symphony concert of the season in the Semperoper on September 1, 2017. Christian Thielemann’s engagement with the symphonic work of Anton Bruckner takes him in Vol. 52 to the composer’s early years. The carefree mood of the First Symphony’s last movement prompted the mature Bruckner to comment: “Never was I so bold and cheeky again.” The work was composed from January 1865 to April 14, 1866, in Linz, with the 2nd version adapted in Vienna from March 12, 1890 to April 18, 1891. It premiered on May 9, 1868, in the Redoutensaal in Linz, with the augmented opera orchestra conducted by the composer. The Vienna version was premiered in the Musikvereinssaal in Vienna on December 13, 1891, with Hans Richter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.

This series honors the 200th anniversary of the birth of Anton Bruckner, which falls in 2024. It's dedicated to Bruckner’s symphonies, all recorded in new transcriptions for organ by Hansjörg Albrecht. The 4th recording was made on the impressive organ of St. Peter, Munich. A bonus track on each volume will be a brand new composition for organ that references Bruckner the composer. Two or three volumes will be released each year, with the project reaching its conclusion in 2024. The third volume features Bruckner’s Symphonic Prelude in C minor, his Symphony No. 3 in D minor, and living composer Johanna Doderer’s PINUS Bruckner-Fenster IV for Organ.

The present recording is part of BRUCKNER2024 – a project which began in 2011 with the goal to record all symphonies of Anton Bruckner in all versions including the intermediate variants until the 200th birthday of the composer in 2024. Bruckner’s search for the ideal symphony is clearly expressed in the various manifestations of his Fourth, which he himself described as the “Romantic”. Having finished the score of his Third on New Year’s Eve 1873/74, he set to work on January 2 of the new year on his sketch of the first movement of the Fourth. Eleven months later, “at half past eight in the evening” on November 22, 1874, the new symphony was complete. But this act of completion was not his last word. Bruckner made changes, replacing his previous Scherzo in 1878 with the version dubbed his “hunting scherzo”. Apart from that, he composed a new last movement known as the “people’s festival”. The next revision, signed off in June 1880, introduced a further, completely new version of the finale. This then, together with the first three movements, comprised the version now usually performed. Hans Richter conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the inaugural performance of the Fourth on February 20, 1881, followed later that year by Felix Mottl in Karlsruhe on December 10. It was once again Hans Richter who conducted the symphony in January 1888, this time in its final version.

Between 1950 and 1980, he was one of the most important conductors of international standing, and yet he has been somewhat forgotten: Karl Böhm was the antistar among the podium greats of his time, a decidedly businesslike servant of the music. For the first time, two Lucerne concert recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic, with whom he was closely associated for decades, are released: Bruckner's Seventh Symphony and - a solitaire in Böhm's discography - an upbeat Hindemith concerto. In the summer of 1970, Böhm, by all means an advocate of contemporary music in his younger years, performed Paul Hindemith's 1949 Concerto for Woodwinds, Harp and Orchestra in Lucerne. The three-movement work offers the five-member Concertino group grateful playing tasks and, with its quotation from Mendelssohn's Wedding March, makes reference to Hindemith's own silver wedding anniversary. In addition to Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Strauss, the symphonies of Anton Bruckner were also central to Böhm's concert repertoire. Böhm's Bruckner interpretations possess an aura, but it is neither the religiously pathos-laden one of Eugen Jochum, nor the pathetically worldly one of Sergiu Celibidache, nor the matter-of-factly austere one of Nikolaus Harnoncourt. This is also evident in the Lucerne recording of the Seventh Symphony from September 1964: Böhm never loses sight of the whole and yet plays out every articulatory detail with almost scrupulous fidelity to the text. He follows Bruckner's blocky editing technique without aggressively emphasizing it. He does not avoid the music's solemn monumentality, but neither does he exaggerate it into false, violent pathos.

Sound and space are mutually dependent. Which works sound best in which environment? Where can the spirit and character of the music most clearly be expressed? These questions are what inspired the conductor Gerd Schaller to embark on an ambitious major project in 2007: in the impressive environment of the abbey church that once formed part of Ebrach's Cistercian monastery in Franconia, he directed his festival orchestra, the Philharmonie Festiva, in recordings of all of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies. Nearly all the recordings were made during concerts in the cathedral acoustics of Ebrach’s abbey church. The location Schaller chose for the recordings of the F minor Symphony, the early D minor Symphony and the Fourth Symphony with its “Volksfest” (fair) finale is the Regentenbau building in Bad Kissingen, which likewise has outstanding acoustics. To crown the previous Bruckner cycle, the unfinished Ninth has been recorded with Gerd Schaller’s own recreation of the final movement.

What is special about this Bruckner cycle is that Schaller in some cases selected less well-known, “interim” versions or variants that had previously never been performed but give revealing insights into Bruckner’s compositional approach. Featured for the first time ever in this CD edition are Bruckner's Third in its first revised form of 1874 and his Eighth in the interim version of 1888. The cycle of symphonies is supplemented by the F minor Mass, the rarely performed Psalm 146 and his organ works as well as Gerd Schaller's organ transcription of the 9th symphony, which he recorded on the Eisenbarth organ of the former Ebrach abbey church.

REVIEW

All eleven symphonies are presented in excellent performances and three of those - the First, Third and Fourth - are each played in two very different versions...the virtuosity and artistry of the dedicated performers concerned are invariably impressive.

The aim of the project is to present the dedicated Brucknerian with the most recent and musicologically sound editions of Bruckner’s symphonies, such that the development of his genius can be explored and appreciated through the constant changes and refinements he introduced into his works. Although Gerd Schaller is meticulous in his research and the production of critical editions, he is certainly no dry academician; he is also an outstanding organist and conductor whose love of Bruckner’s music constantly informs these incandescent performances.

--MusicWeb International

Sony Classical releases the fourth installment of Christian Thielemann’s complete cycle of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic – the orchestra’s first Bruckner cycle under a single conductor. “The claim that this orchestra is essentially the only genuine original sound ensemble for the music of Anton Bruckner should remain beyond dispute” raves Die Presse. The Vienna Philharmonic premiered four of Bruckner’s nine symphonies and has enjoyed a unique relationship with the Austrian composer’s music since 1873, when it gave the first performance of his Symphony No 2.

Thielemann has come as close as possible to the ideal Bruckner sound with the Vienna Philharmonic: full-toned, warm, with registrations that are full of countless colours, clear without sounding harsh and well-contoured without seeming angular. Thielemann’s interpretations of Bruckner’s music are rooted on deep expertise and sympathy. Few conductors can match the solemnity and patience he finds in composer’s symphonies, or his ability to draw on the unparalleled beauty of the orchestra’s sound and the special acoustic of its home in Vienna, the Musikverein.

Christian Thielemann, Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden and Artistic Director of the Salzburg Easter Festival since 2013, is his generation’s most esteemed interpreter of the Romantic Austro-German repertoire. In the midst of a mutually stimulating relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic, he conducted his first New Year’s Concert with the orchestra in 2019.

The Vienna Philharmonic will issue the final release of the live cycle in 2024, marking 200 years since the Bruckner’s birth.