Reissue of fine Bruckner performances from Sanderling and Guilini

Anton Bruckner, Symphonies Nos 7 & 9

Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR

Kurt Sanderling (No. 7)

Carlo Maria Guilini (No. 9)

Hänssler Classic SCM CD 94.604, originally published as CD93.027 (Sanderling) and CD93.186 (Guilini).

This 2-CD set is a welcome reissue of two previously published live recordings. The Sanderling 7^th Symphony was recorded in Stuttgart on 16 December, 1999, while Guilini’s 9^th dates from 20 September 1996 and appears to be the latest Guilini 9^th currently available. The packaging is minimal, with no significant program notes. The performances, however, are terrific and highly recommended to those who do not already possess them. The sound is first rate, with very little audience intrusion or peripheral noise.

Kurt Sanderling offers a very self-effacing performance of the 7^th, eschewing percussion at the climax of the Adagio. If there is a single word that captures his approach it is “balanced” – the performance is well balanced across movements and between different sections of the orchestra. Sanderling adopts a slow, stately tempo in the Adagio (which comes in at just over 25 minutes, the second slowest of his 9 available recordings). He achieves a real sense of grandeur. The Scherzo and Finale offer a contrasting forward momentum, while remaining sufficiently weighty to counter-balance the Adagio, successfully resolving the great problem of how to sustain the intensity of the slow movement through to the final bars.

“Self-effacing” is not the word that springs to mind to describe Carlo Maria Guilini’s performance of the 9^th. Grandeur and monumentality are at the forefront from the opening bars, as he builds up to the first climax in the opening movement. The subsequent change in mood turns  out to be transitory, as Guilini reverts to a broad pacing that skillfully falls just short of the portentous. And so the movement continues, until the massive and effective final climax.

Guilini’s scherzo is suitably driving and demonic, providing a well judged bridge between the two massive slow movements. The Adagio sets a valedictory note right at the beginning. In Guilini’s hands this is definitely a finale, with a final, heroic affirmation in the dissonant climax and then a gently farewell in the coda.

The audience is suitably silenced for a good few seconds before the applause breaks out. And so they should be. This a wonderfully compelling performance, as is Sanderling's. I'm not sure that I understand the marketing logic behind reissuing them together, but I’m glad that Hänssler Classic decided to.

David Zinman, Schubert Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, and 7 (Unfinished)

Schubert, Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2

David Zinman, Tonhalle Orchestra, Zurich, although

RCA Red Seal 88697 87147 2

Schubert, Symphony No. 7 (Unfinished)

Schubert, Rondo for Violin and Strings in A major

Schubert, Polonaise in B flat major for Violin and Orchestra

Schubert, Concert Piece in D Major for violin and Orchestra

David Zinman, Tonhalle Orchestra, Zurich

Andreas Janke, Violin

RCA Red Seal 88697 95335 2

Here are the first two discs in David Zinman’s complete Schubert cycle for RCA with the Zurich Tonhalle. The first disc gives us Schubert’s youthful first two symphonies, while the second couples the much later and better known Unfinished (here numbered as 7, rather than the usual 8) with three less well-known works for violin and orchestra.

 Zinman’s approach is historically informed, rather than a period performance. He uses modern instruments, but his Schubert looks back to Mozart and the classical tradition. This is entirely appropriate for the first two symphonies, which are very classical in approach. Symphony No. 1 was written when Schubert was just 16 years old, with No. 2 coming a year later. Zinman makes a good case for both symphonies, which lend themselves to his brisk tempi and clear articulation.

The first symphony is relatively lightweight, although it has real depth in the Andante and a delightfully lilting Trio. The second symphony is altogether more substantial. Its very long opening movement (13’30” even at Zinman’s brisk pace) couldn’t possibly be mistaken for juvenilia. Nor could the Andante variations on a familiar-sounding theme (based on “Il mio Tesoro” in Don Giovanni), or the whirlwind Presto Vivace, which is precisely the type of movement that Zinman and the Tonhalle play so convincingly.

All in all, Zinman’s Schubert is really rather civilized. This works well for the “fillers” on the second disc. The Rondo for Violin and Strings is Schubert at his most charming and sunny, as is the Polonaise. The Concert Piece in D Major is musically more substantial, but definitely not the dark side of Schubert. ‘Civilized’, though, is not an obvious word to characterize the Unfinished Symphony, and many will prefer darker and weightier approaches to the work.

Certainly, Zinman’s performance of the Unfinished is very short on Sturm und Drang. But he does maintain emotional intensity through momentum and steady tempi. His overall pace is very fast, with the two movements coming in at 11’42” and 9’23” respectively (as opposed to 15’00” and 11’35” for Harnoncourt, for example). The approach works best in the Allegro, where the orchestral color and tone emerge very clearly. The Andante moved too quickly for my ear, however, with a loss of dynamic contrast in key sections. To compensate, though, the Tonhalle’s fine playing is captured in excellent sound, with the woodwinds particularly standing out.

Bruckner 8 by Jaap van Zweden and DSO at Myerson Symphony Hall

Bruckner, Symphony No. 8

Dallas Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jaap van Zweden

Myerson Symphony Hall, Dallas TX

29 April 2012

Jaap van Zweden has been recording a Bruckner cycle with the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra for Octavia Records. The 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, and 9th have already been released. The 8th is due out later this year. On the strength of this performance, the recording will be a compulsory purchase for Brucknerians, even though in Dallas Bruckner has home orchestra advantage, as well as the acoustics of Myerson Hall, which van Zweden has described as the best Bruckner Hall anywhere. Certainly, I have his other Bruckner recordings on order.

In this concert van Zweden played the 1890 Nowak edition. The character of his interpretation was in evidence from the very first bars of the opening Allegro moderato, with the opening theme very expressively played and shaped. Van Zweden's Bruckner is midway between the lyrical and the monumental. He uses the DSO strings, woodwind, and harps to excellent effect in the more singing passages, but never loses touch with the overall architectonic of Bruckner's greatest symphony. The final part of the first movement really showed his interpretation to best advantage, with a delicate rendition of the coda following a powerful and well-paced climax.

Perhaps the greatest strength of van Zweden's approach to Bruckner is his skill in shaping the music - at every level, from the individual phrase and theme to the contours an entire movement and the overall unity of the symphony. I logged the following timings:

I = 15'38"

II = 13'39"

III = 26'04"

IV = 20'48"

The numbers confirm my impression of a fast Scherzo and an expansive Adagio. The tempo of the finale was very well judged after the Adagio, with the slower sections of the finale seeming continuous with the pace of the preceding movement. This no doubt contributed to the security with which van Zweden navigated the multiple themes and complexities of the final movement. There was a similar connection between the Adagio and the Trio of the second movement.

As so often with performances of the 8th, the centerpiece was the Adagio, which built steadily and inexorably through Bruckner's numerous stops, restarts, and halting transitions towards the great climax - at which point, incidentally, the acoustics of Myerson Hall made the triangle clearly audible. This movement displayed the DSO to best advantage - extremely expressive strings, delicate woodwind, and very secure brass. The timpanist drove the pulse of the symphony throughout.

In sum, a very good performance from a conductor who clearly has Bruckner in his blood and an orchestra that can do more than justice to his vision. I look forward to listening to van Zweden's Bruckner recordings with the Netherlands Radio Orchestra - and also to his Parsifal!

Casals Original Jacket Collection

Pablo Casals, The Original Jacket Collection (Sony 88697656902)

Sony has issued several boxed sets in its Original Jacket Collection series. The idea is nice. Each is a boxed set of reissues of well-known recordings by prominent artists, with the individual discs packaged in facsimiles of the original vinyl sleeves, including the original liner notes (although many purchasers will find that, even with their bifocals on, they are reaching for their magnifying glass). In addition to this set I greatly enjoyed the set of Bruno Walter conducting Mahler, Wagner, and Bruckner.

It is not clear whether there has been any significant remastering in this collection. The rather sketchy leaflet identifies Philip Nedel as the remaster, but that is all the information we are given. This is particularly puzzling, since Sony have already re-released (re-re-released?) much of the material in this set in their Pablo Casals edition. On the face of it, this boxed set may seem a better bargain than buying individual reissues in the Pablo Casals edition – at the price I paid the set came out at less than $3 per disc. On the other hand, though, the discs in the Pablo Casals edition (itself a budget-priced series) are typically twice as long as the ones in this set, where each LP is given its own CD. For what it’s worth, I sampled across the two releases and could not detect any meaningful difference in sound quality (although I lay no claim to golden ears).

In any event, the music-making is wonderful and comes primarily from the Prades and Perpignan festivals in the 1950s (studio rather than live performances). The first 2 discs feature Bach’s 3 sonatas for Harpsichord and Viola da Gamba (BVW 1027-29), played with Paul Baumgartner at the piano. All 3 sonatas are highly expressive and Casals brings to them the same intensity that he brings to the better known Suites. The second disc is filled out with Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue and the F major Italian Concerto, both played by Rudolf Serkin – good performances both, but probably not rising to the top of a very crowded market.

For me the highlight of the collection is the complete cycle of Beethoven cello sonatas with Rudolf Serkin at the piano –Casals’s second studio recording of the complete cycle (the first was made in the 1930s with Otto Schulhof and Mieczyslaw Horzowski). Particular highlights are the Adagio in the 5^th Sonata (Op. 102 no. 2) and the extraordinarily long first movement (21 minutes!) from the early 2^nd sonata (Op. 5 no. 2). The effortless mastery of Casals and Serkin is particularly evidenced in the movements that have transitions from Adagio introductions – the Allegro emerges organically from the slow introduction, without a hint of awkwardness or discontinuity.

The set features 3 string trios – Beethoven’s Archduke (Op.97), the Schubert B flat major Trio (D898), and Brahms’s Trio No. 1 (Op. 8). The first two have Eugene Istomin at the piano and the violin of Alexander Schneider. Isaac Stern is the violinist and Myra Hess the pianist for the Brahms. The Beethoven and Schubert recordings are justly celebrated. The Brahms performance is perhaps less well known, but beautifully played. Casals is a superlative chamber musician and his collaborators here are of the highest quality.

The two relative outliers in this collection are the famous White House concert – which stands out because of its location (obviously!), but also its date (1961, whereas most of the other performances date back from the early 1950s). Here Casals is joined by long-time partners Schneider and Horszowski in Mendelssohn’s D minor String Trio (Op. 49) and pieces by Couperin and Schumann (as well as 1 of 2 recordings in this collection of Casals’s own Song of the Birds). On a musical level, however, this disc stands with the others in displaying the organic unity of Casals’s ensemble playing.

The real outlier to me is the 1953 recording of Schumann’s Cello Concerto – a wonderful recording of a wonderful piece, but it breaks the flow of a collection focused on the delicacy of Casals chamber musicianship and his ability to meld a whole that is so much greater than the sum of its parts. The only connection that I can see with the other 9 discs is that it was recorded at Prades with the Prades festival orchestra.

Nonetheless, the fact that the only negative thing I can find to say about this collection is that it includes a great recording of Schumann’s Cello Concerto should speak volumes. This is a wonderful collection and the sound quality is good enough for many of the performances to be signature recordings that can stand against any.

Bohm conducting Bruckner's 7th

Anton Bruckner, Symphony No. 7

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted By Karl Böhm

June 1943, Guttman edition (Preiser CD 90102)

September 1976, Nowak edition (Deutsche Grammophon CD 419 858)

May 1977, Nowak edition (Audite CD 95.494)

Although not terribly celebrated as a Bruckner conductor, Karl Böhm left a relatively substantial recorded legacy, with 24 surviving recordings of the 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 7^th, and 8^th symphonies. Böhm’s lyrical and expansive approach to Bruckner is probably best suited to the 7^th symphony, which was certainly the symphony of which we have the best recorded legacy. There are 2 surviving performances of the Guttman edition, including the 1943 performance reviewed here, and 9 of the Nowak edition, including the 1976 studio recording for Deutsche Grammoph and the 1977 live performance preserved in excellent sound by Audite.

It is interesting to compare the evolution of Böhm’s interpretation from the war years to the two performances when he was already over 80. The timings are very informative. The 1943 Adagio stretches for a very lengthy 27.36, while the DG and Audite discs come in at 24.04 and 22.15 respectively. At the same time, the finale is significantly shorter in 1943 (10.37, as opposed to 12.03 and 12.04). It is characteristic of Böhm’s 7^th symphony interpretations that the Adagio is typically longer than the scherzo and finale combined, but the contrast in 1943 is remarkable. I am not convinced that this extreme architecture works. There are several moments when the Adagio seems about to grind to a halt, and the relatively aggressive approach to the finale distorts the pacing required for the movement not to seem lightweight after the monumental Adagio and what amounts to a second slow movement in the Trio of the 3^rd movement. The sound from the 1943 recording is perfectly acceptable, but it would be difficult to recommend the performance for more than historical interest.

Böhm’s interpretation is much more secure in the 1970’s recordings. The balance between the movements works much better architecturally and the sound quality allows the finer points of Böhm’s approach to come across, in both the live and studio performances. Böhm is a master at shaping Bruckner’s melodic line – as can be appreciated from the opening bars of the Adagio in both performances. He is also highly skilled at bringing out the complex texture of Bruckner’s orchestration. The coda to the first movement illustrates this nicely both live and in the studio.

The 1976 studio performance is marked by very sensuous string playing and great delicacy from the wind sections. The Adagio is well-paced, and the coda displays the VPO beautifully. However, the climax falls a little flat (due not least to a rather subdued percussion section) and the movement lacks the emotional engagement of the live performance, which I found more convincing overall. The Audite sound is good enough to bring out Böhm’s distinctive lyricism. At the same time, the live performance has a sharper edge and greater drive, with a more compelling vision of the architecture of the 7^th. The Audite disc is highly recommended.

Review of Harnoncourt's Bruckner 9

Anton Bruckner, Symphony no. 9 with the documentation of the finale fragment

Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt

RCA Red Seal 2CD 82876 54331 2

There are two CDs on this release. The 1st CD features 2 versions (in German and English respectively) of a workshop concert in which Harnoncourt introduces and conducts John A. Philipps’s edition of the finale of Bruckner’s 9^th Symphony. The 2^nd CD features a live recording of the “standard” 9^th symphony from August 2002.

By the time of Bruckner’s death, we learn from Harnoncourt and from the detailed liner notes, he had completed composing the finale, but was unable to complete the instrumentation. Some portions exist in their entirety, in particular the whole of the exposition. In some the final instrumentation remains incomplete. And, although there appears to have existed a fully paginated autograph score, a number of pages have disappeared.  

The lengthy fragment that remains (around 18 minutes of music) is tantalizing. It contains some of Bruckner’s most dissonant and forward-looking music (as Harnoncourt puts it, Bruckner dropped into the musical world like a stone from the moon), as well as another of his wonderful fugues. Tragically nothing remains of the coda in which Bruckner recapitulated key themes from the 5^th, 7^th, and 8^th movements. But there is enough preserved to make clear that Bruckner envisaged the finale as the summa of his symphonic odyssey.

So now Bruckner-lovers and performers have a real puzzle. On the one hand, the remains of the finale are too fragmented to be performed after the 3 movements that have been preserved in their entirety. On the other, the standard picture of the Adagio being Bruckner’s apotheosis and farewell to life seems demonstrably mistaken.

This has performance implications, most obviously for how the Adagio is approached. Comparing them side by side reveals Harnoncourt to be much more understated than, say, Gunter Wand. Harnoncourt approaches the opening bars with much weaker dynamical contrast, for example. And the Adagio’s massively discordant climax is less monumental for Harnoncourt than it is for Wand (and many others).

Of course that’s exacting what one would expect when the Adagio is viewed as the 3rd of 4 movements, rather than as a cathartic finale. But the downside is that the 4^th movement doesn’t really exist, and so to structure the Adagio in the light of it may be to compromise its greatness without adding audible benefits.

Nonetheless, Harnoncourt has done a valuable service by dispelling some persistent myths about the 9th symphony, and shedding new light on Bruckner’s final statement. It will be hard for anyone who listens to this lengthy fragment to hear the standard 3 movement version in the same way again.

Review of Tristan und Isolde (Bayreuth 2009, Opus Arte DVD)

Tristan Robert Dean Smith

Isolde Iréne Theorin

Brangäne Michelle Breedt

King Marke Robert Holl

Kurwenal Jukka Rasilainen

Melot Ralf Lukas

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Peter Schneider. Produced by Christoph Marthaler. Recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival, 9 August 2009

This production of Tristan by Swiss director Christoph Marthaler was first seen at Bayreuth in 2005, revived in 2008, and then opened the 2009 Bayreuth Season. It met with a mixed reception, to say the least, and it is not hard to see why.  Traditionalists are likely to be up in arms at the absence of boats, trees, castles, sword fights and other staples of Tristan productions. At the other extreme, enthusiasts for Wieland Wagner’s 1950s minimalist psychodramas will be appalled at Marthaler’s determinedly affect-free approach, with characters turning their backs to the audience and staring hopelessly at empty walls.

I do not have much sympathy for the booing audience in 2005, however. After a while one begins to appreciate the atmosphere of desolation created by the sets, costumes, and extreme understated acting. Tristan and Isolde’s doom was sealed long before the curtain rises on the first act, and the production is built around the inexorable slide towards the carnage of the final scene. The dowdy costumes and drab interiors accentuate the sense of futility and the production culminates in a dramatic masterstroke, as Isolde lies down on Tristan’s hospital gurney and pulls a white sheet over her head as she expires at the end of the Leibestod.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the focus of the production, the first and last acts are more successful than the second. Each of the principals is most convincing in the absence of the other. Iréne Theorin’s Isolde is visceral in Act 1 as she laments her betrayal by Tristan/Tantris. Robert Dean Smith’s Tristan comes into his own in Act 3 as he regains consciousness and slowly builds to the delirium scene where he hallucinates Isolde’s arrival. His finest moment is ‘O dieser sonne’. Both are less convincing in Act 2, although the ‘O sink herneider’ duet is sung with delicacy and Robert Holl is a commanding Konig Marke.

The outstanding singer in this production is Iréne Theorin, whose Isolde is deeply felt and thrillingly sung. In the final stages of Act 3 she moves compellingly from fury with the dead Tristan to a transcendent ‘Mild und leise’. Robert Dean Smith has much less psychological depth as Tristan, with a tendency to stand and belt out his lines. Jukka Rasilainen is a very creditable Kurwenal, particularly fine in the first part of Act 3. Michelle Breedt’s Brangäne is a very worthy partner to Theorin in the first two acts.

Peter Schneider’s conducts well. I appreciated his pacing in Act 1. It came across particularly well in the interlude between scenes 4 and 5. Act 2 was somewhat less convincing, with the two key dramatic entries of Tristan and Kurwenal not as effective as they might have been. But momentum and tension were maintained in Act 3.

The audio and visual quality of this Opus Arte CD are characteristically excellent. It would probably not be an ideal “starter” Tristan, but is certainly to be recommended for Theorin’s excellent Isolde and Marthaler’s idiosyncratic and thought-provoking production.