Ax Returns to SFS under van Zweden’s Baton

Last night conductor Jaap van Zweden returned to Davies Symphony Hall to lead the San Francisco Symphony in a program coupling an eighteenth-century concerto with a nineteenth-century symphony. Both works were completed nearing the end of their respective centuries. The program began with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 503 piano concerto in C major, composed in 1786. The soloist for the performance was Emanuel Ax. The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Anton Bruckner’s seventh symphony in E major (WAB 107), composed in 1883 and revised in 1885.

Pianist Emanuel Ax (photograph by Nigel Parry, courtesy of SFS)

C major tended to be Mozart’s key for high spirits, and Ax definitely delivered a spirited account. He last visited Davies in October of 2024 to give a Great Performers Series Concert divided equally between Ludwig van Beethoven and Robert Schumann. Particularly memorable, though, was his duo performance with Itzhak Perlman in Davies in January of 2016, when they gave a delightfully fresh account of Mozart’s K. 296 sonata in C major. Ax was clearly “on the ball” last night, and his engagement with van Zweden was consistently attentive. Nevertheless, for all the many times he returned for bows, it seemed as if his heart was not in the music as it had been in past visits.

Fortunately, van Zweden’s heart was definitely in his approach to Bruckner. Just about any Bruckner composition requires more than a few listening encounters before one can begin to appreciate his efforts. Having experienced that journey myself, I felt as if I could share my own appreciation with van Zweden’s. Mind you, I encounter performances of Bruckner’s music so seldom that I usually need a bit of time to “settle into” his rhetoric at the beginning of any of his compositions. Under van Zweden’s direction, that “settling” did not take very long. Once I could establish the “terrain” of his interpretation, I could appreciate the vast expanse of the composer’s rhetoric; and I found myself leaving Davies with the wistful reflection that I needed to hear more of this music.

Jordi Savall Conducts “Forgotten” Symphonies

Jordi Savall on the cover of his latest AliaVox album (from its Amazon.com Web page)

Today is the release date for the latest recording on the AliaVox label created by Jordi Savall as a platform for performances by the many ensembles he leads. The repertoire of the releases involves, for the most part, early music ensembles in which Savall performs and/or leads. Indeed, the header provided by Google search is “Alia Vox - Producer of Early and Classical Music since 1998.”

However, today’s release takes a bold leap into the nineteenth century with symphonies by two decidedly different composers. The earlier of these is Robert Schumann’s WoO 29, the “Zwickau” symphony in E minor. Only two movements of the symphony were completed, composed between 1832 and 1833. This early effort by Schumann is complemented by one of the earliest efforts by Anton Bruckner to compose a symphony. The WAB 100 symphony in D minor, given the title “Die Nullte” (Symphony Number 0) was completed in 1869, preceded only by WAB 99, the “Studiensymphonie” in F minor composed in 1863.

The title of the album is Forgotten Symphonies, and Savall conducts Le Concert des Nations. It will probably go without saying to most readers that this is a side of Savall’s talents that one has never previously encountered. Nevertheless, he comes across as very much involved with both of these periods in the nineteenth century. This is particularly the case with the Bruckner symphony, since the composer’s concept of pace can often be at best enigmatic and at worst downright tryings. The Schumann composition, on the other hand, was the composer’s first attempt to try his hand at orchestral music. Listening to WoO 29 under Savall’s baton left me with the impression that, while this symphony was never finished, the composer had gotten off to a good start!

Taken as a whole, this album is likely to provide a journey of discovery for all that listen seriously. That said, listeners that know their music history will probably recognize each of these works as an early set of steps in a journey that lies ahead. Personally, I am a sucker for “origins” stories; and I expect to mine one of those from each of the works on this album after I have listened a few more times!

A “Complete” Account of Bruckner’s Symphonies

Cover of the box set being discussed (courtesy of Naxos of America)

The last time I did a “deep dive” into the music of Anton Bruckner was during my tenure with Examiner.com in the summer of 2013. That was when Profil released its 20-CD box set, Anton Bruckner: The Collection. At that time, my knowledge of Bruckner’s music was sadly minimal. This provided me with an opportunity to get to know the full canon of the symphonies, along with an introduction to his sacred music, chamber music, and keyboard music.

This past July I learned that Naxos would release a “complete versions” account of the Bruckner symphonies. Markus Poschner led recordings of all eleven symphonies with eighteen versions among them, conducting both the Bruckner Orchester Linz and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Where there was adequate room, there were additional tracks for movements associated with the symphonies that were subsequently rejected. These include an early Scherzo for the first symphony, based on an edition by Wolfgang Grandjean, Leopold Nowak’s edition of the 1876 Adagio movement intended for the third symphony, and the “Country Fair” (Volksfest) movement that Bruckner had planned as a finale for his fourth symphony, edited by Benjamin Korstvedt. (Korstvedt was also responsible for the publication that accounted for all of the versions in this collection, which are included in the New Anton Bruckner Complete Edition.)

How significant is this completeness? Clearly, the answer to that question depends on the listener’s interest in the Bruckner canon. Once again I find myself reminded of a slogan for the Sunday edition of The New York Times that was popular during my student days: “You don’t have to read it all, but it’s good to know it’s all there!” My opportunities to listen to Bruckner in performance have been few and not particularly satisfying. However, rather than dismissing my interest in the composer, those encounters made me more curious about them. As a result, I continue to treasure my Profil collection.

However, this new Naxos release takes a “deeper dive” into the symphonies than the Profil release could accommodate. The fact is that it is only through a commitment to listening to each work on multiple occasions that one can begin to appreciate the ways in which Bruckner explored new perspectives on the very concept of a symphony. When a work went through multiple editions, that commitment extends to accounting for the changes from one edition to the next. At the very least, I now know that, when I have an opportunity to listen to a concert performance of a Bruckner symphony, I shall have no trouble being well-prepared for the experience!

Groissböck and Martineau “Reply” to Schumann

Cover of the album being discussed

Many readers probably know that 1840 was Robert Schumann’s “year of song,” during which he composed four song cycles an a generous number of lieder. My guess is that the best known of the cycles is his Opus 42 Frauenliebe und Leben (a woman’s love and life), the setting of a cycle of poems by Adelbert von Chamisso. Recently, bass Günther Groissböck decided to “respond” to Schumann’s “call” by preparing an album entitled Männerliebe und Leben, drawing upon songs by four male composers to provide the perspective of “the other sex.” As of this writing, this album is currently available on Amazon.com only through an MP3 download Web page; but the good news is that the download also includes a PDF file of the accompanying booklet.

The selections are ordered in the chronological order of the composers’ birth dates. Schumann, represented by his Opus 48 Dichterliebe cycle, is preceded by Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 98 cycle An die ferne Geliebte. The remaining two composers are Anton Bruckner and Johannes Brahms. The former is represented the three songs, while the Brahms selections account for five of his collections, with two songs from Opus 32.

I have to confess that, while he is represented by the fewest number of tracks, Bruckner was a major influence in drawing me to this album. Unless I am mistaken, this was my first encounter with any of Bruckner’s efforts in the art song genre. Even the 23-CD Collection anthology, released by Profil, seems to lack any evidence, although there is no shortage of sacred music. Thus, all three of the tracks, setting texts by August van Platen, Emanuel Geibel, and Matthias Jacob Schleiden (a biologist writing under the pseudonym “Ernst”) constituted a journey of discovery worth taking, no matter how modest it may have been.

All of the other selections on the album were familiar. To be fair my reactions to Beethoven’s Opus 98, informed by many years of listening, were mixed; but this has more to do with Beethoven than with the performers! The good news is that Groissböck knew how to work with pianist Malcolm Martineau’s keyboard work, which, of course, could probably evoke Beethoven’s rhetorical stances at the drop of a hat! Similarly, my encounters with Dichterliebe go back to my days in Los Angeles, where one of my colleagues at the Information Sciences Institute happened to be a baritone. Since my condo was a short distance from the lab, we would take a “lunch break,” once a week, at my place to work on this cycle. As might be guessed, our respective wives were the only ones to hear our performance of the work in its entirety!

Salonen’s Engaging Command of Bruckner’s 4th

Last night Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen led the San Francisco Symphony in the first of the three performances of the penultimate program for the current subscription season. The “lion’s share” of the program took place after the intermission with a performance of Anton Bruckner’s WAB 104, his fourth symphony in E-flat major. Bruckner himself endowed this symphony with a subtitle: “Romantic.” Those familiar with the Bruckner canon know that many of his compositions were revised and reworked, leading to multiple editions. Last night’s performance used Leopold Nowak’s edition based on the composer’s final version of the score, which he completed in 1880.

Salonen has a keen ear for the overall pace of a Bruckner symphony. For the most part, the conductor tended to shy away from rapidity. Nevertheless, when properly conducted, there is always a clear sense of moving forward, even if the pace is restrained. Salonen’s approach to that pace could not have been more satisfying, right up there with my past encounters with Conductor Laureate Herbert Blomstedt (as well as Blomstedt’s recordings of all of the symphonies). That attention to pace allows the attentive listener to appreciate the many ways in which the thematic content twists and turns its way among the full palette of “instrumental colors.”

Listening to Bruckner is not like listening to the intricate interplay of the themes that one encounters in the orchestral music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms. Bruckner’s subjects are more straightforward, but their unfolding emerges through instrumental coloration. One might say that there is not much variation in the building blocks, but you keep looking at them from different points of view. Those points of view unfold over the course of prolonged time frames, making the act of listening one of ongoing discovery.

According to my records, this was my second encounter with Salonen conducting Bruckner, the first having taken place in February of last year with the performance of WAB 106, the sixth symphony in A major. I would be only too happy to have him guide me through more of this composer’s symphonic repertoire. Given that his tenure will be concluding soon, I fear that future encounters are likely to be few, if any at all.

Pianist Yefim Bronfman (photograph by Dario Acosta, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony)

The first half of the program saw the return of pianist Yefim Bronfman as concerto soloist. The concerto was a familiar one: Robert Schumann’s Opus 54 in A minor. As usual, Bronfman was both energetic and expressive; and his chemistry with not only Salonen but also the members of the orchestra could not have been better. As expected, he returned with an encore that was probably familiar to many listeners, the fifth (in the key of G minor) of the ten preludes that Sergei Rachmaninoff collected for his Opus 23. Both concerto and encore provided just the right “warm-up” for the journey that would follow after the intermission.

Simon Rattle in Berlin: Nineteenth Century

Having accounted for the First Viennese School, my second series about Simon Rattle’s recording history with the Berlin Philharmonic will examine the nineteenth century. This amounts to a blend of depth and breadth that is likely to influence serious listeners in different ways. The only composer that merits three CDs is Johannes Brahms with an account of all four of his symphonies. This makes Brahms the “leader of the pack,” reinforced with a CD of his Opus 45, entitled A German Requiem. Rattle delivers satisfying accounts of all five of these compositions; and I enjoyed listening to bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff, my first encounter in several years. Nevertheless, all of this music is so familiar to me that I never encountered an approach to interpretation that would make me sit up and take notice.

Sadly, I reacted about the same way to the two selections that were intended for staged performances but were recorded in concert. The earlier of these is the 2009 recording of the complete score for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 71, his music for the two-act ballet The Nutcracker. The other was a complete studio recording of Georges Bizet’s Carmen, recorded in 2012. Perhaps I have just been saturated by too many encounters with both of these works in performance!

On a much more positive account, I welcomed the presence of the two CDs that account for the tone poems of Antonín Dvořák. My encounters with these pieces have been so few that I am not even sure I have heard all four of them in the past. However, because there are so few of them, I fear that, for many listeners, they may be dwarfed by all of the other selections in this collection. Nevertheless, these are likely to be the selections to which I shall be returning in the future!

The only other composer that is allocated more than one CD is Anton Bruckner. The collection includes the first recording to be made of a “completed” account of that composer’s final (ninth) symphony. The score for the fourth movement was “made whole” through the prodigious efforts of Nicola Samale, Giuseppe Mazzuca, Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs, and John Phillips. I wrote about the recording when it was first released, but that was back during my tenure with Examiner.com. So encountering it in this collection amounted to a “return visit.” The only other Bruckner CD is the fourth symphony. While Rattle had recorded a performance of this symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra based on subsequent scholarly efforts by Cohrs, his Berlin recording goes back to the 1886 version edited by Leopold Nowak.

Another performance that is seldom encountered is that of Franz Liszt’s “Faust Symphony.” This amounts to an imaginative extension of the tone poem. In his title Liszt explicitly described the composition as consisting of three character sketches, one for each movement. In “order of appearance” those characters are Faust, Gretchen, and Mephistopheles. While I appreciate having this recording in my collection, I fear that Liszt’s project looked better on paper than as a listening experience.

Where narrative is concerned, Hector Berlioz’ Opus 14 “Symphonie fantastique” and Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” (even with Maurice Ravel’s orchestration) are more convincing. Each of these pieces has a “partner” on its respective CD. The Berlioz album concludes with “La mort de Cléopâtre;” and “Pictures” is coupled with the second symphony (in B minor) by Alexander Borodin, followed by the “Polovtsian Dances” from his Prince Igor opera.

If my reaction to this side of Rattle’s repertoire tends to be somewhat lukewarm, I have not yet given up on him. The lion’s share of his attention is situated solidly in the twentieth century. In my plan it will take six articles to cover that content. Watch this space for further developments!

Karl Böhm’s Remastered SWR Recordings

courtesy of Naxos of America

At the end of this past February, SWR Classic released a six-CD collection of performances of Karl Böhm conducting the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, primarily in their preferred venue, the Liederhalle concert hall. Of the ten compositions performed in this collection, only one, Johannes Brahms’ Opus 68 (first) symphony in C minor, is a studio recording. All the others are recorded documents of “live” performances.

As might be guessed, six CDs account for a relatively limited repertoire. Furthermore, that repertoire is not particularly balanced, since two and a half of the CDs are devoted to three symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven (Opus 26, the second, in D major, Opus 92, the seventh, in A major, and Opus 125, the ninth, in D minor), along with one piano concerto, Opus 58, the fourth in G major. Neither the vocal soloists nor the pianist are likely to be familiar to most readers; but, fortunately, the accompanying booklet provides brief introductions to all of them. The pianist (Branka Musulin) is also soloist in a recording of Robert Schumann’s Opus 54 concerto in A minor, taken from a performance at Waldheim in Degerloch, an outer district of Stuttgart.

Here in the United States Böhm is best known for his performances with the Metropolitan Opera. He made his debut in 1957 and conducted 262 performances there. Most important were the premiere performances of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and two Richard Strauss operas, Ariadne auf Naxos and Die Frau ohne Schatten. He was also a leading figure at the Salzburg Festival, where he first appeared in 1938, after which he became a permanent conductor. Since all this happened when Adolf Hitler was in charge, Böhm had to complete a two-year denazification process after the end of World War II; and I suspect there are still a few that lift their eyebrows over his association with The Met.

That said, it is worth noting that one of the selections in the SWR collection is Paul Hindemith’s “Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber.” Given that he was included in the Nazi’s 1938 Entartete Musik (degenerate music) exhibition in Düsseldorf, it is clear that the Nazis were far less sympathetic to Hindemith than they were to Böhm. Nevertheless, this particular recording captures all of the wit behind Hindemith’s approach to metamorphosis. Whether is makes the entire collection “worth the price of admission” is left for the attentive listener to decide!

The Hindemith selection is the penultimate one in this collection. It is followed by a live recording of Anton Bruckner’s seventh symphony in E major. This is the one in which the second (Adagio) movement depicts the soul of Richard Wagner entering Heaven. Regardless of any opinions about Nazi influences, Böhm’s interpretation of that movement is likely to make any seriously attentive listener kvell, particularly when the climax involves the only use of cymbals and timpani in the entire symphony! That is reason enough for any serious listener to get to know this recent collection.

Salonen Couples Samuel Adams with Bruckner

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco Symphony (SFS) Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted the third of four programs highlighting the piano. He scheduled these to precede his first European residencies tour with SFS, which will begin on March 9. This particular program was the only one in which the pianist, Conor Hanick, was making his SFS debut.

Samuel Adams (photograph by Lenny Gonzalez, courtesy of SFS)

That debut accounted for the entire first half of the program, in which “first contact” involved more than the soloist. Hanick performed the solo piano part for the world premiere of “No Such Spring,” composed by Samuel Adams on an SFS commission. This was very much music emerging from the pandemic; but the title was chosen to suggest an implicit narrative, which reflects the composer’s having listened to Igor Stravinsky’s music for the ballet “The Rite of Spring” around the time that Russia began to invade Ukraine.

Like Stravinsky’s ballet score, “No Such Spring” requires a very large ensemble, which includes extensive percussion resources. In the nine lines describing the instrumentation in the program book, a little over six of them were required to account for percussion instruments. One would think that the pianist would have a major job in contending with the orchestra, but Adams had just the right sense of balance to “level the playing field” between soloist and ensemble.

In his pre-concert discussion with Chief Artistic Officer Phillippa Cole, Adams deftly escorted his audience through the ideas behind the three movements of his composition: “Colorfugue,” “Double Variations,” and “Garden of Wire and Wood.” The last of those titles reflected his own description of the piano; and it was interesting to note that both of the other two titles served to reflect centuries of past traditions of musical practices. That said, the music as it was then performed was very much a product of the immediate present.

Over the course of about half an hour, Adams wasted no time in cracking the “energy coefficient” up to “eleven” and sustaining it all the way through to the final measures. Salonen had clearly internalized the many details of instrumental interplay, consistently doing justice to the distribution of energy for the sake of rhetorical intensity. Any attentive listener could easily relish all of those details, particularly when the auditory experiences were coupled with the visual impressions of both conductor and ensemble determined to do justice to the composer’s score. This is music that encourages attentive listening; and, hopefully, it will be able to sustain a place in contemporary repertoire that will extend beyond its premiere performance.

The second half of the program was also devoted to a single composition, reaching back about a century and a half to Anton Bruckner’s sixth symphony in A major. This was last performed when Conductor Laureate Herbert Blomstedt visited SFS in February of 2010. At that time I was still trying to hone my listening skills where Bruckner was concerned, and Blomstedt’s performance could not have been a better source of guidance. Over the course of that thirteen-year interval, I have become much better attuned to the uniqueness of Bruckner’s approach to expressiveness. Last night I was delighted to find that Salonen’s account of this symphony was as absorbing as my previous experience with Blomstedt.

The impact of that listening experience had much to do with the extent to which a Bruckner symphony movement amounts to a journey through the unfolding of a series of sonorities. One might almost liken any of those movements to a narrative accounting for unfamiliar events in an unfamiliar language. It is up to the conductor to extract an underlying sense of “meaning” from that unfamiliarity, and Salonen know how to “mine” that meaning for all it was worth.

For about half a decade, I have cultivated my Bruckner listening skills primarily through experiences of listening to Blomstedt on recordings as well as in performances in Davies; last night I came to appreciate that my skills can be further honed by Salonen.

The Latest “Discovery” of Hans Rott

Jakub Hrůša on the cover of his new Deutsche Grammophon album (courtesy of Crossover Media)

A little less than two months ago, Deutsche Grammophon released an album, whose content was organized around the first symphony composed by Hans Rott. That organization seems to have been conceived by the album’s conductor, Jakub Hrůša, leading the Bamberg Symphony, where he has been Chief Conductor since 2016 and is currently contracted to serve until 2026. Where Rott’s music is concerned, Hrůša appears to be an unabashed enthusiast. The advance material for this album quotes him as saying, “At a time when his younger schoolmate Mahler hadn’t yet written his first symphonic score, and his mentor Bruckner was struggling through his middle period, Rott was able to produce incredibly groundbreaking musical ideas, and to see how a symphony could expand in a manner unlike almost anyone before him.”

Rott began work on this symphony in 1878. Attentive listeners will have no trouble identifying themes from the symphonies of Gustav Mahler in the third and fourth movements. However, to mix metaphors somewhat awkwardly, those admirers of Mahler’s music would be looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Mahler did not begin work on his first symphony until 1888, drawing upon thematic material from his Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (songs of a wayfarer) song cycle, which he completed in 1885. “Theme detectives” listening to Rott’s symphony will detect material associated with Mahler’s second and fifth symphony, making it clear that Mahler was the one appropriating from Rott.

To be fair, however, Hrůša was far from the first to discover this instance of “appropriation in the wrong direction.” According to search results on Amazon.com, recordings of Rott’s symphony have been available at least as early as November of 1989, when Hyperion released an album of Gerhard Samuel conducting the Cincinnati Philharmonia Orchestra. Perhaps it takes a “prestige label” like Deutsche Grammophon to get music lovers to pay attention!

Beyond prestige, though, the new release also includes two “bonus tracks” following the four track’s of Rott’s symphony. The first of these is Mahler’s “Blumine” movement. Those consulting the Wikipedia page for Mahler’s first symphony will discover that the composer had an on-again-off-again relationship in deciding whether this movement belonged in the symphony. When the final version of the score was published in 1899, the “Blumine” movement was decidedly “off.” However, during my student days in the Sixties, there was a revived interest among record producers that were Mahler enthusiasts; and that decade was when I first purchased a recording of the symphony, which included that movement.

Over half a century has passed; and, unless I am mistaken, I have only encountered this movement in a concert performance in January of 2017, when the San Francisco Symphony performed it under the baton of then Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas. Hrůša seems content to present it without including the context of the other movements of the first symphony. MTT did the same, and I am inclined to sympathize with both of them. Mahler packed so much content into the four movements that were published that most listeners are probably perfectly happy with the plan of the movements and the overall duration. I have listened to the four-movement version in a generous number of concert programs (several led by MTT); and I have never felt that I missed the presence of the “Blumine” movement, whatever its charms may be.

The final track is a brief (a little less than six and one-half minutes) performance of WAB 297, a single orchestral movement that Anton Bruckner entitled “Symphonic Prelude.” This is based on music discovered shortly after World War II, about half a century after Bruckner’s death. This score has probably received as much attention as the “Blumine” movement. Indeed, in the context of Hrůša’s interest in Rott, the original orchestration of the music was performed for the first time in March of 1997. Once again the conductor was Samuel, this time leading the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

This composition was not included in the Profil anthology of Bruckner’s music. The thematic material for WAB 297 draws upon passages from both the first and second symphonies (WAB 101 and WAB 102), both composed in C minor. Given that I have more than enough to occupy me with the different editions of the symphonies, I cannot say that I miss the absence of WAB 297 from that anthology; but I cannot object to having an account of it on Hrůša’s new Deutsche Grammophon album.

Bruckner++ From Simon Rattle and the LSO

One week from today the “house label” of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) will release what may fairly be called a “scholarly” account of Anton Bruckner’s fourth “Romantic” symphony in E-flat major. Simon Rattle leads the LSO in a performance based on the Urtext Edition of this composition, prepared by Bruckner scholar Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs. Some readers may recall that Cohrs had previously contributed to preparing the performance version of a full four-movement account of Bruckner’s ninth symphony in D minor, first performed by Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. As usual, Amazon.com has created a Web page to process pre-order both the CD and the MP3 download of the album tracks.

Bruckner completed the first version of his fourth symphony in 1874. He then worked on revising the score between 1878 and 1881. During that period he discarded the Scherzo movement, replacing it with an entirely new movement, still in Scherzo form. Similarly, he composed a new Finale in 1880. Finally, as Cohrs put it in the booklet notes, the symphony “underwent a whole series of corrections for or after performances in 1880 and 1881, which Bruckner himself and his copyists made in the autograph score, its copies and orchestral parts, thus establishing various ‘work phases’ (two of the first three movements; three of the Finale).” The result was a new score prepared in 1881 by the Viennese copyist Giovanni Noll incorporating “the last word” on all of Bruckner’s revisions.

The “physical” version of the new album consists of two CDs. The first of these is the performance of the 1881 score in its entirety. The second CD then amounts to what may be called a “scholarly appendix.” It includes the two movements that Bruckner had discarded, both the Scherzo and the Finale. There is also an unabridged account of the new Finale, which Bruckner then scaled down in the score he provided to Noll. Finally, there is an “extended initial version” of the Andante quasi Allegretto, which Bruckner had composed in 1878. Like the Finale, this was subsequently abridged for the “Noll score.”

The content of this second CD brings to mind a very old slogan that The New York Times used to promote its massive Sunday edition: “You don’t have to read it all, but it’s good to know it’s all there.” My guess is that most listeners will be perfectly content to listen only to the “complete” account of that 1881 score on the first CD. Nevertheless, given the rich extent of content in the booklet notes, I would not be surprised if the more enthusiastic Bruckner listeners will be tempted to check out the four tracks on the second CD. Personally, my own curiosity will lead me to see if I can find a nearby library with a copy of Cohrs Urtext Edition.

Masur’s Late Nineteenth-Century Repertoire

I have now traversed the full extent of late nineteenth-century music accounted for in the Warner Classics 70-CD box set of recordings made by conductor Kurt Masur. Had I realized how many recordings this would entail, I probably would have taken the same approach I took with the Dmitri Mitropoulos anthology and separate the music of Tchaikovsky as a separate category, as I had already done with Masur’s Brahms recordings.

Masur is definitely more thorough than Mitropoulos had been. He accounts for all six of the numbered symphonies, as well as the Opus 58 “Manfred” symphony, all performed with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. On the other hand his New York Philharmonic recordings include all three of the piano concertos, all performed with pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja. There is also a second recording of the first concerto, Opus 23 in B-flat minor, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Cécile Ousset as the soloist.

Finally, there is an album entitled Pas de Deux: Famous Waltzes. I have to confess that I found this one more than a little gratuitous. As anyone that knows more than beans about the ballet will quickly recognize, there are no pas de deux selections on the album. The waltzes come from a variety of sources, not just the ballets but also the Opus 24 opera Eugene Onegin, the last two symphonies, the Opus 48 serenade for string ensemble, and the incidental music composed for a production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. All of these waltzes are gems in their own respective rights, but enough is enough!

In terms of quantity, the music of Antonín Dvořák comes in at a distant second. The only symphonies are the two most popular, Opus 88 (the eighth) in G major and Opus 95 (“From the New World”) in E minor. There are samples of shorter works, including three of the Slavonic dances. More interesting is the trilogy of overtures collectively titled Nature, Life and Love. These are Opus 91 (“In Nature’s Realm”), Opus 92 (“Carnival”), and Opus 93 (“Othello”). Opus 93 is a rather odd candidate for “love;” but, since it receives so little attention, one can appreciate its presence in Masur’s repertoire. Finally, there is a New York Philharmonic performance of the Opus 53 violin concerto in A minor with Maxim Vengerov as soloist.

Vengerov also appears with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in a performance of Max Bruch’s Opus 26 (first) violin concerto. This is the only Bruch selection in the collection, but it gets a second performance by Sarah Chang with the Dresden Philharmonic. Somewhat more generous is the share for two symphonies by Anton Bruckner, WAB 104 (the fourth in E-flat major) and WAB 107 (the seventh in E major). Both of these were recorded with the Philharmonic, and that was probably as much as the New York audiences could take of Bruckner. The only other composers to be allotted an entire CD are César Franck, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and early compositions by Gustav Mahler. Max Reger and Modest Mussorgsky have to make to with sharing their respective albums with other composers, not necessarily making the best of company.

Thus, while there is much to appreciate in Masur’s accounts for this impressive diversity of repertoire, one might have argued for a better balance of the contributing composers.

An Imaginative Karl Böhm at Lucerne Festivals

courtesy of Naxos of America

Where new recordings are concerned, the year got off to an unexpectedly imaginative start with the latest release by AUDITE Musikproduktion of live concert recordings from the Lucerne Festival. The album features Karl Böhm conducting the Vienna Philharmonic (VPO) in repertoire that departs significantly from what we tend to expect of him, either operas or the familiar symphonic repertoire of composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and Johannes Brahms. Ironically, the two selections on the album were both recorded at performances on September 6; but they are six years apart. The earlier recording was made in 1964, a performance of Anton Bruckner’s seventh symphony. This is preceded on the album by the recording made in 1970 of Paul Hindemith’s concerto for woodwinds, harp, and orchestra.

The Hindemith concerto is likely to strike many as the bigger surprise. However, the composer and the conductor were very close contemporaries by birth; and, given how much attention Böhm gave to the operas of Alban Berg, his interest in Hindemith, albeit for symphonic music rather than opera, should not be too surprising. My guess is that Böhm’s interest was piqued by the instrumentation; or possibly he was persuaded by the VPO musicians who had few efforts to shine as soloists. The “beneficiaries” of this concerto were flutist Werner Tripp, oboist Gerhard Turetschek, clarinetist Alfred Prinz, bassoonist Ernst Pamperl, and harpist Hubert Jelinek. What may have “sealed the deal,” though, may well have been the raucous sense of humor that rules over the final (third) movement of this composition. Hindemith composed this music at the time of his silver wedding anniversary, and he seems to have decided to celebrate with an over-the-top loopy mashup of the themes from the wedding music that Felix Mendelssohn composed as incidental music for William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Nothing could be more different in spirit than the Bruckner symphony that follows. For those unfamiliar with this music, it is probably best known for the second movement, which is the longest of the four. Bruckner began work on this movement knowing that Richard Wagner was in poor health and would probably not live much longer. As a result, the instrumentation for this movement includes four Wagner tubas. It also includes cymbals and triangle, more than a little surprising for a composer whose interest in percussion rarely extended beyond the timpani. Those instruments appear at the movement’s climax, supposedly reflecting the fact that Bruckner had just learned of Wagner’s death and chose to depict his “heroic” entry into heaven. (The percussion instruments were actually suggested by Arthur Nikisch, who conducted the premiere performance by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra on December 30, 1884.)

The score that Nikisch used was never published. The first publication was prepared by Albert J. Gutmann in 1885, probably serving as the best possible document of the music as Nikisch had conducted it (including the “extended” percussion parts). However, it also reflected influences by Franz Schalk and Ferdinand Löwe.

By the time that Böhm conducted this music, two further editions had been published. The first of these appeared in 1944, prepared by Robert Haas, who was determined to work from the one autograph copy dating from 1883 and to eliminate all influences due to Nikisch, Schalk, and Löwe. The Haas edition is best recognized for the absence of all percussion in that second movement. Ten years later (in 1954), however, Leopold Nowak published a new edition that basically reversed all of Haas’ “improvements.” His only real change to the Gutmann edition was to put any changes in tempo from the version that was premiered in brackets. For his Lucerne performance Böhm went back to the Gutmann edition.

Many tend to shy away from Bruckner’s symphonies, complaining that his extended durations for most of the movements are excessive. Having listened to this particular symphony both in performance and on recording, I have to say that Böhm seems to have found the “sweet spot” that avoids just about any sense of excess. Mind you, 1964 was when Böhm was closely associated with the Metropolitan Opera’s performances of works by both Wagner and Richard Strauss. The conductor clearly knew how to manage the subjective reaction to extended durations, and his “tool kit” would have served him equally well in managing those durations in Bruckner.

To be fair, however, it is hard to avoiding thinking of Hindemith and Bruckner as “strange bedfellows” on this album; but what is more important is Böhm’s ability to guide the attentive listener through these decidedly different offerings without showing any sign of preferring one over the other.

Profil Releases Horenstein “Reference Recordings”

courtesy of Naxos of America

Tomorrow Profil will release its latest anthology project. This is a ten-CD collection of performances conducted by Jascha Horenstein given the title Reference Recordings. I am not quite sure what that title was intended to denote (or, for that matter, connote); but it would be fair to say that the overall content provides a valuable survey of music from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with Ludwig van Beethoven at one end at Béla Bartók at the other. As expected, Amazon.com has created a Web page set up to process pre-orders even as I write this.

Horenstein was one of the first conductors to seize my attention seriously, going all the way back to when I was in secondary school. I was given the long-playing recording of his interpretation of Beethoven’s Opus 125 (“Choral”) symphony by an uncle that had just purchased the Columbia box set of Bruno Walter conducting all nine Beethoven symphonies. (He was not particularly interested in whether different conductors would interpret the same score in different ways.)

The recording I received seemed to have come from some record club. On it Horenstein led the “Pro Musica Symphony,” which was the name that the Vox label used to get around the fact that the Vienna Symphony Orchestra had signed a contract in Philips in April of 1952. The vocal soloists on the album were soprano Wilma Lipp, alto Elizabeth Hoengen, tenor Julius Patzak, and bass Otto Wiener, singing with the Wiener Singverein, the chorus of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (society of friends of music) in Vienna, which dates back to 1812.

After Vox reissued this recording on CD, I was motivated to write an article about Horenstein for Examiner.com. That recording is not included in the Profil anthology; but the other Vox reissue I discussed, that of Beethoven’s Opus 55 (“Eroica”) symphony in E-flat major is part of the collection. This is the earliest of the “reference recordings” in the collection, and listening to it remains as exciting as the experience had been with my first encounter.

After my move to Palo Alto, I experienced another “trigger event” that reminded me of my past enthusiasm for Horenstein. There was a radio broadcast of an archival BBC recording of Horenstein conducting Gustav Mahler’s eighth symphony in the Royal Albert Hall on March 20, 1959. That recording was released as a two-CD set by ICA Classics, prefacing the first movement of the symphony on the first CD with a twenty-minute conversation with Horenstein conducted by Alan Blyth. The recording of the symphony was subsequently chosen to lead off the first BBC Legends anthology produced by ICA, but without the interview. I wrote about that collection on Examiner.com but saved the original two-CD release to keep the interview.

The Mahler eighth is not included as a “reference recording.” However, there is an equally compelling account of the third symphony in D minor, which is roughly on the same imposing durational scale as the eighth; and there is also a recording of the first (“Titan”) symphony. However, the most significant “point of reference” is that of the very first recording made of the Kindertotenlieder cycle in 1928. The vocalist is Heinrich Rehkemper, accompanied by the Orchester der Staatsoper Berlin. In addition to this generous share of Mahler, the collection also includes a Pro Musica Symphony recording of the 1890 version of Anton Bruckner’s eighth symphony in D minor.

All of this is still a relatively modest representation of an impressively rich account of repertoire. Most imaginative is a “Faust project” album that Horenstein recorded in 1956 with the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra. The first track is devoted to Richard Wagner’s “Faust Overture” (a concert overture with no connection to opera). This is followed by Franz Liszt’s “Faust Symphony” in three movements, each of which is a character study of Faust, Gretchen, and Mephistopheles, respectively. Wagner is also represented by the opening prelude to Lohengrin and the usual concert coupling of the very beginning and very conclusion of Tristan und Isolde.

From a personal point of view, I have to say that the most compelling selections were the two early pieces by Arnold Schoenberg. The first of these is the string ensemble version of the Opus 4 “Verklärte Nacht” (transfigured night). While the purist in me prefers the original string sextet, I decided to follow the string ensemble score for this one. I realized that there was much to be gained from the revised version, and Horenstein clearly grasped all of the significant details in this revision.

Opus 4 was followed by the Opus 9 chamber symphony in E-flat major. This also has an orchestral version, but Horenstein conducted the original version for fifteen solo instruments. (I assume this was the case because all the string passages were played by solo instruments.) No matter how many times I listen to this piece, I continue to have trouble getting my head around it; and, once again, I resorted to score-following. This was still a challenging undertaking, but the clarity of Horenstein’s interpretation made reading the score less of a scramble than it had been on previous occasions.

There is much more I can write about the remaining selections. A total of fourteen composers are represented in this collection. However, I would like to believe that, by now, the reader has a clear sense of my enthusiasm for this collection and the extent to which that enthusiasm is for a conductor that was as much at home with twentieth-century repertoire as he was with the more familiar nineteenth century.

Returning to the Digital Concert Hall

Leif Ove Andsnes and Herbert Blomstedt after their Mozart performance (from the Digital Concert Hall Web page for this program)

I filed my first article on Examiner.com on March 7, 2009. Not long thereafter, I was informed that the site was encouraging writers to provide articles in response of the hard economic circumstances that ensued in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007–08. My response was to write an article entitled “Concerts on a tight budget in cyberspace.”

Once again, we are in a situation in which cyberspace is emerging as almost a “vital” resource. From a personal point of view, it provides me to return to my preferred “beat” to write about listening experiences in concert, rather than through recordings. So it was that I discovered that I could return to the Digital Concert Hall for free access to its library of film and video documents of concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic. Back in 2009 I referred to this as “the best virtual experience of a symphony orchestra concert.”

I am not sure how many visits I shall make to this site during the current difficult times, but I chose to begin with familiar faces and composers. I spent this afternoon viewing a performance that took place this past January 18 with Herbert Blomstedt as guest conductor. His soloist was pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, playing in the concerto selection, K. 482 in E-flat major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Anton Bruckner’s fourth (“Romantic”) symphony, also in E-flat major, using the score of the radical revisions he made to the original 1874 version, which he completed in 1880. This was the sort of programming that would not have surprised me on one of Blomstedt’s visits to the San Francisco Symphony; and, if truth be told, Blomstedt was one of the first (if not the first) conductors to get me to start listening seriously to Bruckner. (For that matter, his approaches to Mozart were also just as consistently engaging.)

Taken as a whole, this was a program of contrasts. While Andsnes’ demeanor tends to be intensely serious, he clearly appreciated the playfulness that Mozart himself probably brought to his own performance of K. 482; and Andsnes responded equally personal approaches to that playfulness. That rhetorical stance was consistently supported by Blomstedt from beginning to end. The partnership between soloist and conductor could not have been better, particularly with Andsnes choosing cadenza material (possibly his own) that did not follow the usual “trill signal” indicating that he was ready to rejoin the orchestra.

Nevertheless, for all the technical and rhetorical virtues of this performance, I have to say that the camera work was a far cry from what it had been in 2009. While attention to Andsnes’ facial expressions and body language often cued the rhetoric he had prepared to convey, video direction was not as kind to either the ensemble or the conductor. In the latter case one simply did not see enough of Blomstedt. More problematic was a disturbing tendency to direct the camera at “secondary” instruments, as if the video director was never quite sure which instruments were carrying the thematic material. Thus, while the account of the role of the keyboard could not have been better, the relationship between soloist and ensemble was never effectively conveyed through the visual channel.

As might be guessed, the video of Andsnes’ encore was equally satisfying. He chose to play the second of the Opus 54 (fifth) book of Edvard Grieg’s Lyric Pieces. This was the piece entitled “Gangar” (Norwegian march). Andsnes clearly knew how to play this piece without overplaying it, particularly in his ability to take repeats that did not sound repetitious. In many respects the piece was as playful as the Mozart concerto; but the context of the play was entirely different, making for an encore that suited the program, rather than simply one more opportunity for the pianist to show off his skills.

Fortunately, watching Blomstedt conduct Bruckner was much more of an asset. Bruckner is often accused of being too repetitious. However, Blomstedt’s body language consistently made it clear that every instant of the score was a significant one. Mind you, the entire symphony is a vast landscape of different levels of significance; but Blomstedt always conveyed a sense of rhetorical progression linking what-is-happening-now to what-comes-next. In other words Blomstedt knew how to present the overall landscape of signification within which the rhetorical delivery was one of discovery rather than reiteration.

Nevertheless, I am afraid that, when the camera was not directed at Blomstedt, it was frequently as disoriented as it had been in the Mozart performance. I was reminded that when Jordan Whitelaw directed his telecasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, there was a clear sense that he was following his own copy of the score with the same attention as the conductor. (That said, it appeared that, while there was a music stand in front of him, Blomstedt never consulted a score during his Bruckner performance.) Back in 2009 the video work for the Digital Concert Hall lived up to Whitelaw’s high standards. Sadly, that no longer seems to be the case; but the performance of the music itself continues to be absorbing.

Bruno Walter on Columbia: Bruckner and Mahler

As initially announced, my examination of Bruno Walter: The Complete Columbia Album Collection will conclude by addressing his recordings of the music of Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler. As I already observed, Walter worked closely with Mahler as both assistant and advocate. For the record (as they say), Mahler seems to be the first conductor to perform his music in the United States; but the first conductor to present Mahler’s music on a regular basis was Willem Mengelberg during his tenure with the New York Philharmonic between 1922 and 1928.

The Musikverein in Vienna, where much of Mahler’s music was performed by Bruno Walter, among others (photograph by Gryffindor, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)

The earliest Mahler recording of Walter I have been able to identify is a concert recording of Das Lied von der Erde made on May 24, 1936 with the Vienna Philharmonic performing at the Musikverein. The soloists are contralto Kerstin Thorborg and Charles Kullman, and the recording was first released in the United Kingdom by the Columbia Graphophone Company. It would later be released as a Columbia album in the United States. It was included in the eight-CD collection The Music of Gustav Mahler: Issued 78s, 1903-1940, produced by Urlicht AudioVisual in a limited edition of 1000 copies and no longer available.

Sadly, this recording is not part of the “complete Columbia album collection,” probably because it was not produced in the United States. This omission is a bit of a pity, not only because its vintage is so early but also because it is one of the gutsiest interpretations of Das Lied von der Erde that I have encountered. (The recording is listed in what amounts to the “London appendix” to the discography that concludes the 203-page book that accompanies the CDs in the collection.)

Nevertheless, there is enough to appreciate in what the collection does offer to justify setting aside any grousing. The recording of Das Lied von der Erde is relatively recent, made in April of 1960 with the New York Philharmonic and soloists Mildred Miller (mezzo) and Ernst Haefliger (tenor). As many readers know, I have a strong bias in favor of contralto Kathleen Ferrier, meaning that it will be very difficult for me to dislodge the Vienna recording she made with Walter and tenor Julius Patzak (whatever others may say about his age when the recording was made in 1952) from the top of my personal list. That said, Walter’s command of the overall song cycle is as compelling in 1960 as it was in 1952 (and, for that matter, in 1936).

Walter never covered all of Mahler’s symphonies in his sessions with Columbia. The only one I miss is the sixth, since I am curious as to what Walter would have done with its over-the-top emotional intensity. The symphonies that are included are the first, second, fourth, fifth, and ninth. Only the first was recorded twice, first in New York and later in Hollywood. Taken as a whole, these are all informed and engaging accounts that do not try to short-change Mahler’s expressiveness. I was also glad to satisfy my “contralto fix” with Maureen Forester’s performance in the second (“Resurrection”), joined by soprano Emilia Cundari.

There is also an opportunity to listen to Walter at the keyboard, accompanying soprano Dési Halban in eight of Mahler’s earliest songs, all based on texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Halban is also the soloist in the final movement of the fourth symphony, which is another setting of a Wunderhorn text. Walter clearly appreciated the intimacy of all of these text settings (including the one in the fourth symphony). He thus provides the listener with a side of Mahler that tends to be overlooked by those thinking that emotional intensity is all that matters.

The Bruckner offerings are far more modest. My guess is that Bruckner did not go down very well with the Columbia bean-counters. For that matter I cannot say that I encountered very much by way of compelling listening experiences until the turn of this new century. (Even now I have colleagues complaining that Bruckner spent too much time saying too little.)

The fact is that there are only five Bruckner recordings in the collection, and three of them were made in Hollywood between 1959 and 1961. Those sessions covered the three best-known of the nine symphonies, the fourth (“Romantic”), seventh, and ninth (in its three-movement version). The New York recordings were made much earlier in 1953 (the setting of the Te Deum hymn) and 1954 (the seventh symphony recorded at a New York Philharmonic concert in Carnegie Hall). The Hollywood recording of the seventh is definitely more expansive (which I prefer in spite of others who complain about Bruckner’s length).

My overall impression is that Walter knew how to get beyond any matters of duration and deliver an account of Bruckner that would reward the patient listener. However, Walter’s intentions were only as good as the willingness of the ensemble to follow his lead. In that context I was struck by the impression that the Hollywood players were more willing than those in New York. (Given some of the gossip that has accumulated around the Philharmonic’s reputation, I should not be surprised by this comparison.)

There is, of course, the usual question of which versions Walter used to prepare his performances. The track listing provides this information for all of the recordings except for the Carnegie performance of the seventh (meaning that the information probably had not appeared in the concert program). (Walter used Bruckner’s original version for his Hollywood recording, so it would not surprise me if he had used in previously in New York.)

Taken as a whole, I would say that there is much to be learned from listening to Walter’s perspectives on both Bruckner and Mahler in this collection; and, while I have other recordings of all of the compositions he recorded, I look forward to revisiting this portion of the Columbia anthology that Sony recently released.

Evensong at Church of the Advent

The next Evensong service to be held at the Church of the Advent of Christ the King will take place on the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany in conjunction with the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Music will be provided, as usual, by Schola Adventus, the church’s resident choir directed by Paul Ellison. Selections will include settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis canticles from Herbert Howells’ Collegium Regale collection. The music of Charles Villiers Stanford will also be included with the third of his Opus 38 collection of three Latin motets, “Beati quorum via” (blessed are those whose way). Finally, the choir will sing Anton Bruckner’s setting of the “Tantum ergo” (therefore so great) verses. The music for the Preces versicles and responses will be by William Smith; and Ellison will provide processional and recessional organ music by Hubert Parry and Stanford.

The Church of the Advent of Christ the King is located at 261 Fell Street, between Franklin Street and Gough Street. The entry is diagonally across the street from the SFJAZZ Center. This is an inclusive parish of the Episcopal Church in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. The service will begin at 4 p.m. this coming Sunday, February 16. Those wishing further information may call 415-431-0454.

Anton Bruckner the Miniaturist

courtesy of Naxos of America

The name Anton Bruckner is most frequently associated with large-scale orchestra music in the domain of both symphonies and sacred music. Nevertheless, early in his career he wrote solo piano compositions that are far better suited to intimate social gatherings, rather than concert halls and cathedrals. His output in this genre is modest. Last month Brilliant Classics released a recording of his complete piano music (see below for qualification) played by Francesco Pasqualotto. It all fits on a single CD consisting of 31 tracks.

Pasqualotto is far from the first to record this canon. Nevertheless, Brilliant has packaged its recording with an informative set of booklet notes, giving the attentive listener ample background for this less familiar side of Bruckner’s compositional efforts. Still, he seems to overlook that at least one of the moments in the four Lancier-Quadrille that open the album is likely to evoke thoughts of Jacques Offenbach, rather than of Bruckner. (This leads one to wonder whether Bruckner ever thought to try his hand at operetta.)

Most of the album is devoted to selections from the Kitzler Study Book. This is a workbook in which Bruckner wrote pieces during his studies with the conductor and cellist Otto Kitzler. The entire volume consists of 163 pages of different sizes, not all of which are solo piano compositions.

To be fair, Pasqualotto has not accounted for all of the piano works in this notebook, meaning that the collection is not, strictly speaking “complete.” Furthermore, the track listing does not indicate which of the selections are from the notebook, nor does that listing provide the WAB catalog numbers (including the unclassified works with “deest” identification). Nevertheless, Pasqualotto’s selections are definitely representative and more than adequately so. Ultimately, this is an album best appreciated for its intimacy; and, where Bruckner is concerned, that is an attribute worthy of attention!

Van Zweden’s Return Makes Deep Impressions

Conductor Jaap van Zweden (from his San Francisco Symphony event page)

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall this month of conductors visiting the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) began with the return of Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden. When van Zweden made his SFS debut in February of 2014, he was Music Director of the Dallas Symphony; but this season marks the beginning of his tenure as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. While I have not be tracking the repertoire he has brought to the Philharmonic for his first season, here on this coast he clearly wanted to make an impression through his command of radically different styles.

His program consisted of only two compositions. SFS Principal Clarinet Carey Bell was concerto soloist in the first half, playing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 622 concerto in A major. The intermission was then followed by Anton Bruckner’s fifth symphony in B-flat major, making “something completely different” far more than a Monty Python cliché. What was most important was how van Zweden clearly knew well how to focus his attention in each of these two works that were practically diametrically opposing.

Handling the instrumental resources for K. 622 is no easy matter. We have come to take it for granted that Mozart performances by SFS draw upon a reduced string section. However, when it comes to balance, the clarinet is a tricky instrument. Each of its registers has its own distinctive sonority, but all of them have the ability to cut through even the thickest of instrumental textures as easily as a warm knife cuts through butter. It goes without saying that Bell is impeccably skilled at endowing each of those sonorities with richly expressive execution. The key question, however, is whether the accompanying ensemble can hold up against an instrument that is undeniably assertive, even when playing pianissimo.

Last night it seemed as if van Zweden needed a bit of time to find just the right way to bring that reduced string section into balance. Early in the first movement, when Bell was blithely working his way through a well-polished account of a diverse palette of accompanying textures, the strings had a bit of difficulty making it clear that they were the one’s carrying the principal theme. However, by the time that movement concluded, the relationship between soloist and ensemble was more clearly oriented around the relationship between melody and accompaniment; and that established agreement pervaded the remaining two movements of the concerto.

Balance was also an issue in the Bruckner symphony, presented last night using the score edited by Robert Haas. In this case, however, the matter is one of dynamics. While working with relatively modest resources (pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, timpani, and strings), the dynamic levels run the full gamut from barely audible to absolutely thundering. Furthermore, Bruckner is often inclined to shift rapidly from one extreme to another, often spending almost no time in the “middle ground.”

Van Zweden was clearly attentive to this rather idiosyncratic approach to loudness, but he was just as clearly determined to let Bruckner be Bruckner. Sadly, the audience was not as attentive. Back in 2006 when I was just beginning to exercise my writing chops, I wrote about “The Unbearable Being of Silence” in an audience that shattered the intense quietude of a piece by Toru Takemitsu with just about any means of breaking the silence, whether it involved coughing, sneezing, shifting weight in a squeaky chair, or rustling the program. The opening measures of Bruckner’s fifth are, admittedly, on the threshold of audibility; but, thanks of audience behavior, one only knew that the performance had begun by watching the cellists playing pizzicato.

Needless to say, things settled down the first time Bruckner’s pendulum took a swing into the fortissimo region. By then, however, the rhetorical significance of his approach to contrast has been seriously damaged. This was a great pity, since van Zweden clearly knew how to negotiate Bruckner’s extreme turns, whether they involved dynamics, instrumental resources, or, in a few cases, tempo. This was a reading that made a solid case to lure those who had their doubts about Bruckner into territory that, while clearly different from the territories of composers like Johannes Brahms or Gustav Mahler, had a distinctively compelling approach to logic, grammar, and rhetoric. All that was necessary was for the audience to sit still and pay attention; and, once listeners were willing to adjust to some of the more confounding qualities of the opening measures, it seemed as if they were gradually buying into what Bruckner was offering and how van Zweden was offering it.

Bruckner needs more advocates as compelling as van Zweden, and let us hope that more of them will bring their informed understanding to Davies in the near future.

Hans Knappertsbusch’s Bruckner on Profil

Anton Bruckner with his Order of Franz Joseph medal (photograph by Otto Schmidt, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain).

A little less than a week ago, I wrote about the Brahms portion of Profil’s ten-CD release of Hans Knappertsbusch conducting music by Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner. At that time I confessed to having lost count of the number of recordings in my collection of different conductors performing the Brahms symphonies. That count is far more limited where the symphonies of Anton Bruckner are concerned, as is my account of any of that music at concert performances I have attended.

The same may be said of my interest in those symphonies. I went through the better part of my life with little interest in Bruckner’s writing, which I tended to dismiss as being as narrow in scope as it was long in duration. However, after I moved into a position of having to write about the music I experienced it in a more productive way, I found that two conductors served to guide me towards a better appreciation of that conductor. One of those conductors, Sergiu Celibidache, is now deceased; and I had to draw upon recordings of his performances. The other, Herbert Blomstedt, is still alive; and I had the good fortune to experience his impact in February of 2012 during one his visits to Davies Symphony Hall in his capacity as Conductor Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony.

Blomstedt’s selection was the fifth symphony in B-flat major. This was not a “first contact” experience, since I had first encountered the symphony on one of the recordings made by Wilhelm Furtwängler, compiled in the 107-CD collection Wilhelm Furtwängler: The Legacy. However, it was Blomstedt that prompted me to sit up and take notice; and, before I knew it, I was teetering on the edge of my seat! The positive energy that I poured into my Examiner.com account of Blomstedt’s performance managed to work its way across the Atlantic Ocean to Altenburg, Germany, the home of the querstand label, which had released an SACD box of all nine numbered symphonies by Bruckner, all taken from concert performances given by Blomstedt with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. By November of 2012 I had channeled my February enthusiasm into an Examiner.com article about that box set.

Since then my interest in these symphonies has grown with every listening opportunity that comes my way, either in concert or on recording. I have become more aware of decisions made involving Bruckner’s manuscripts, his own revisions, and the labors of well-informed editors. Considering how much scholarly attention has gone into creating critical editions of these symphonies, it is important to note that all of Knappertsbusch’s performances (including those recorded) were based on first published editions, even though critical editions were beginning to see publication during his lifetime.

Nevertheless, the music is in the performance, rather than the scholarship. In addition to the fifth symphony, the Profil collection includes the third in D minor, the fourth (“Romantic”) in E-flat major, the seventh in E major, the eighth in C minor, and the published three movements of the ninth in D minor. The earliest of the recordings is of the fourth with the Berlin Philharmonic (1944); and the latest is of the fifth with the Vienna Philharmonic (1956).

What is important about all of these recordings is that, whatever technical shortcomings there may have been in the audio equipment, Knappertsbusch had an uncanny knack for bringing clarity to Bruckner’s scores. Often, this was a manner of finding the right levels of balance for his full-throated homophonic passages. However, when the writing is polyphonic, Knappertsbusch knew how to draw attention to all of the multiple layers of activity. This new release could have been an excellent selection for those just becoming acquainted with Bruckner were it not for the fact that the accompanying booklet provides so little background material. Given my own background knowledge, I suspect that I shall be visiting all six of these CDs with considerable frequency.

On the other hand those who know their Bruckner also know that there is a somewhat contentious issue around the seventh symphony. Those readers should bear in mind that a spoiler is about to follow. Bruckner knew that Richard Wagner was dying when he began work on this symphony. He thus conceived of the second (Adagio) movement as a solemn memorial that would come to a climax depicting Wagner’s soul entering heaven (which appears in the score at rehearsal letter W). (Supposedly, Bruckner was working on this portion of the movement when he received word of Wagner’s death.) This is the only time in the entire symphony that Bruckner adds the percussion section to his instrumental resources, underscoring the climax with a single cymbal crash. There has been a fair amount of argument as to whether the use of those cymbals was over the top. However, since they were in the first published edition, they ring forth in all their glory on the Knappertsbusch recording!

“Private Musical Performances” by Linos Ensemble

courtesy of Naxos of America

Back when I was writing for Examiner.com, I had the good fortune to learn about the Linos Ensemble, a chamber orchestra founded by oboist Klaus Becker in 1977. They had an ongoing project with the Austrian Capriccio label to record chamber music arrangements that had been prepared for performances by the Society for Private Musical Performances (Verein für musicalische Privataufführungen). Arnold Schoenberg had founded this organization in Vienna in 1918 with the intention of giving high-quality performances of unduly neglected compositions. When those compositions required more resources than could be mustered, Schoenberg and his colleagues prepared arrangements suitable for chamber ensembles. At the beginning of this month, Capriccio released an eight-CD album of all the recordings made by Linos for this project. That album is now available from Amazon.com; but, sadly, it is only available for MP3 download.

Ironically, the only Linos recording I had encountered prior to last month presented music that was never given a Society performance. Schoenberg himself began an arrangement of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in the fall of 1921 but never made it past the middle of the first movement. By the end of that year, the Society had dissolved for lack of funds; and Schoenberg abandoned his project. Long after Schoenberg’s death, in 1982, the German conductor and composer Rainer Riehn decided to complete Schoenberg’s unfinished project with the goal of realizing Mahler’s sonorities with the sorts of chamber resources used at the Society concerts. That is the version that Linos recorded for Capriccio, true to the spirit of the Society if not to the flesh.

Those familiar with this composition will immediately recognize the limited dynamic range of the arrangement. Nevertheless, there is a transparency that emerges through the thinner textures. That transparency allows the attentive listener to identify more layers of detail than can make it to the surface in the setting of a large string section and energetic percussionists.

This is basically a rule of thumb that pervades the many compositions documented in the new Capriccio collection. This is far from a complete account the arrangements made for the Society. For one thing the repertoire that accumulated over the 113 concerts presented between December 29, 1918 and December 5, 1921 was extensive and highly varied. Furthermore, many of the arrangements involved only a single keyboard; the very first concert featured Mahler’s seventh symphony in a four-hand arrangement by Alfredo Casella.

Thus, while this Mahler selection is familiar, it is also one of the most ambitious where arrangement is concerned. Among the Capriccio recordings its closest rival would probably be Anton Bruckner’s seventh symphony in E major. This is the symphony in which, during the second (Adagio) movement, Richard Wagner was welcomed into heaven with a cymbal crash; and those expecting an outburst of percussion will probably be disappointed. Nevertheless, within the scope of reduced instrumentation, the spirit behind that climactic moment still rings true.

It is worth observing that many viewed the Society as a highly dedicated, but nevertheless grim, gathering of modernists serious to the brink of fanaticism. I was therefore very pleased to discover that the last CD in the Capriccio collection demonstrates that both Schoenberg and his best-known students, Alban Berg and Anton Webern, could have a sense of humor. The disc presents five waltzes by Johann Strauss II, three arranged by Schoenberg and one each by Berg and Webern.

As I recall, when these manuscripts were rediscovered, the American Musicological Society celebrated the occasion by hosting a ball (of sorts) at its annual meeting. The intention was to get musicologists dancing to Strauss by virtue of the Second Viennese School, and some of the attendees even dressed appropriately for the occasion. Unfortunately, I did not make it to that meeting. Four of the waltzes were subsequently recorded by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players; but, thanks to Linos, this was the first time I learned that those were not the only four arrangements.