One of the most commendable
and important features of this recording
is textual. The 1935 Haas edition was
of course revised by Nowak and has been
re-edited since. But as the detailed
booklet explains, corrections made by
the composer in a copy (undated) in
the National Library in Vienna provide
further authorial endorsement to the
edition prepared for this recording.
All the additions and editing decisions
will become part of the Complete Bruckner
Edition. In the light of these revisions,
small but apparently numerous, we can
place Harnoncourt’s new recording, part
of his cycle for the BMG group.
He has been accorded
sumptuous sound. The VPO burns with
translucent power and sensitivity; strings
burnished but restrained, never a voluptuary
sound. Similarly Harnoncourt gives rein
to the brass perorations, driving material
with authority (as the rehearsal extracts
on the second disc plainly show). That
said I would advise those of you with
neighbours – that is those not living
in a castle or a mountain lodge – to
exercise great care. The dynamics are
extremely wide - from the merest whisper
of a pianissimo (the start of the symphony
is inaudible to normal hearing) to blaring
fortissimo. In practical terms it’s
actually quite difficult to find reasonable
level at which to listen. The performance
itself is one of contrasts and, as one
would expect from Harnoncourt, a certain
revisionist spirit. Control of structural
peaks and troughs is there; moments
of crisis and resolution there as well.
The slow movement is brisk, hewing closer
to the Wand-Haitink axis than the classic
Karajan (who at twenty minutes is five
minutes slower than Harnoncourt). Those
who might expect a warm bath might find
instead, if not a cold shower, at least
a lukewarm temperature for all the power
and forthright direction. The Scherzo
troubled me most. The dynamics are at
their widest here and the sense of contrast
at its most palpable but Harnoncourt
seems obsessed with a kind of stop-start
motion that sounds very mannered. The
abrupt conjunctions may indeed be his
point but it sounds, instead, just point
making, as does (to a lesser degree)
the galumphing quality with which he
vests the finale, though the fugal section
is powerfully etched.
The companion disc
offers extensive rehearsal sequences.
These are doubtless valuable for points
of balance and matters of interpretation
but they offer little concrete that
the recording doesn’t. That by the way
is live but the audience is supernaturally
quiet. Documentation is splendidly thorough
and matters of textual editions and
associated scholarship prove enlightening.
Many will welcome Harnoncourt’s leaner
and more jittery Bruckner 5 but it felt
to me like a case of too many side chapels
and not enough cathedral.
Jonathan Woolf
see also
review by Terry Barfoot
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Nikolaus Harnoncourt
RCA
RED SEAL 82876 60749 2 [73.08 + 74.49] 
