The live performance of William Carragan’s completion of the
Finale to the Ninth Symphony might for some constitute the principal
attraction to this four-disc issue, but the main offering here
is three of Bruckner’s most popular symphonies. These are live
recordings of performances from three different years at the
Ebrach Festival. If the name of the Philharmonie Festiva is
unfamiliar to you, be reassured that it comprises soloists from
the three main Munich orchestras, with the Munich Bach Soloists
at their core. You may thus have no fears regarding its competency
to handle Bruckner’s massive sonorities and complex counterpoint.
There are no flubs or blips, just immensely elegant and homogeneous
playing of extraordinary facility. The brass are especially
sonorous but every section covers itself in glory.
The sound, too, is mostly exemplary in its clarity and definition,
and only very occasionally slightly soft-edged, this being live
and not subject to the highlighting of individual instruments
to which audiophiles have become accustomed. The acoustic sounds
more like a faithful reproduction of what you would hear in
a purpose-built concert hall rather than the nave of an abbey.
A couple of discreet coughs apart in the first movement of the
Fourth, there is hardly a trace of audience noise and no amplification
of extraneous noise. The engineers have succeeded in recreating
Bruckner’s putative “cathedral of sound” in an actual church.
The reverberation carries on for about five seconds once the
music stops but it does not clog the texture during the actual
playing. The brass blare brazenly, instrumental lines emerge
cleanly without undue prominence and those rich harmonies and
arresting dissonances, the result of Bruckner’s increasingly
daring experimentation, are beautifully articulated.
Having reacquainted myself with a good few standard recorded
versions, I conclude that there is something about the nature
of Bruckner’s music which permits far less scope for the imposition
of idiosyncratic or even wayward interpretation. The music seems
largely to dictate its own momentum. Certainly there are far
fewer discrepancies in timings amongst the classic versions
than one might encounter in recordings of, say, Mahler. Gerd
Schaller’s accounts sit firmly in a recognisable tradition of
Bruckner conducting. He eschews excessive rallentandi and agogic
distortions of the kind favoured by Jochum but is rarely routine
or mundane. Just occasionally I felt I would have appreciated
a little more attack and intensity in his delivery. The emphasis
here is upon a stately sonorous quality where some rival versions
find more tension. In the Ninth, for example, I have yet to
find a recording to rival that by Wildner on Naxos for sheer
majesty of sound in combination with propulsive momentum. Hard
though it is to credit, the Westphalians manage a virtuosity
to match orchestras of far starrier provenance. Good as it is,
the weakness in Friedemann Layer’s recording with the Mannheim
forces, is the occasional sourness of tone from the woodwind
and scrappiness from the strings. Layer’s recording of the Ninth
is not in direct competition with the Ninth on this set as he
opts to use the “Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca” completion of
the Finale (begun in 1983, finished in 1991 and corrected again
in 2008). Schaller uses Carragan’s version.
Harnoncourt’s recording with the VPO of the 18 minutes of extant,
orchestrated music up to the recapitulation of the chorale,
provides sufficient evidence for the general listener to hear
just how substantial, complete and extensive the supposed Finale
“fragments” are and how feasible a completion is. Benjamin-Gunnar
Cohrs proposes that 223 bars are missing from a probable 665
of the Finale planned by Bruckner. Of those 442 are mostly fully
orchestrated. Furthermore, there are sketches for those missing
223, leaving only 96 for which we have no music. Carragan, however,
argues that more bars are missing than the SPCM collaboration
allows for. His version, completed in 1982 and here used in
its latest performing edition from 2010, runs to 717 measures.
It is the coda which leaves the greatest latitude for invention
and it is there where we hear the greatest differences between
completions.
I find myself joining the ranks of those convinced that this
most transcendent of symphonies is best served by the addition
of a Finale at least something like what Bruckner envisaged.
The composer himself was clear that a finale was required, hence
his suggestion that the “Te Deum”, despite being in the wrong
key of C major, could be used as a default ending if he failed
to live long enough to complete the symphony. It is equally
clear that he intended in the Finale to reference themes not
only from the preceding three movements but perhaps from preceding
symphonies, too, confirming the Ninth as the summation of his
life’s work. If you want this symphony to stop with the Adagio,
you have no reason to abandon Wand, Walter, Giulini or Jochum,
but they will not do once one has accepted the aptness and desirability
of a Finale.
Carragan’s decision to provide more extensive links where Bruckner’s
music is missing admits the possibility of hearing more of Carragan
himself than Bruckner, whereas the relative brevity and fidelity
of the SPCM edition admits fewer possibilities of indulgence.
As such, it ends up sounding more consistently echt Brucknerian
than some of Carragan’s more exotic elaborations. Conversely,
Carragan’s greater inventiveness might be preferable to what
some could hear as an over-reliance in the SPCM version upon
a preponderance of descending ostinato figures of the kind we
hear repeated eight times in the opening. For me, it all hangs
together: the effect is of squadrons of golden eagles gradually
descending. The succeeding lyrical section, beginning around
15 minutes in, is strongly reminiscent of the Siegfried Idyll;
we then segue into echoes of Das Rheingold, with a big,
thrilling, brass fanfare at 18:34, a sudden silence at 23:30
and finally a string tremolando crescendo.
Carragan’s apotheosis is a more conventionally linear pealing
of great bronze bells but his original use of brass for the
coda is very striking. Indeed, his orchestral colouring is in
general more brass and woodwind biased and there is a certain
amount of doubling which can make the textures seem a little
thick. I like Carragan’s insertion of the “catastrophe chord”
at 18:00 although some find it melodramatic and presumably either
too derivative or anachronistic in its allusion to the screaming,
dissonant outburst of despair in the Adagio and Finale of Mahler’s
Tenth Symphony. The sweep, urgency and conviction of Schaller’s
direction make the strongest possible case for Carragan. I have
listened repeatedly to both Finales and must ultimately sit
on the fence: I like the more chaotic, cumulative glory of Carragan’s
more mercurial version but am equally in admiration of the artistic
unity and integrity of the SPCM confection.
In concentrating on the Ninth and in particular the novelty
of its Finale, it is possible to neglect emphasising the excellence
of the performances of the other two symphonies here; they are
superb in their own right.
Schaller’s tempi in the first two movements of the Fourth will
for some represent the juste milieu between Tennstedt’s
broader pacing and Jochum’s nervier, more erratic direction.
His shimmering strings and mellow horns generate a marvellous
sense of tense expectancy in the introduction to the first movement.
The music seems to float in mid-air; once more I am conscious
of how both Schaller’s conducting and the acoustic of the recording
combine to suggest vast space, although Tennstedt still has
the edge when it comes to creating a sense of inexorable progress
towards the exuberant climax. The playing is flawless; Schaller’s
steady concentration positively hypnotises the listener and
we are swept along in wave after wave of refulgent sound. The
smoothness of the lower strings in the Andante is a joy, although
Tennstedt’s Berlin Philharmonic produces marginally more depth
and resonance in their tone. Schaller’s horns in the Scherzo
are effulgent, although the acoustic slightly takes the edge
off their articulation. Perhaps to counteract that, Schaller
could have asked them to imitate Tennstedt’s horns and play
more staccato. Tennstedt phrases more lyrically in the
quieter passages, but in the Finale it is Schaller who this
time most successfully captures the suspense of the opening
and builds to the first, splendid tutti peroration after
only three minutes.
The Seventh has long been considered Bruckner’s most approachable
symphony. It was certainly my route into a first acquaintance
with his œuvre. Used to the rather thin sound on Karajan’s 1970/71
recording for EMI – badly in need of re-mastering - I was immediately
very struck by the burnished, aureate glow of the cellos’ ascending
“dream” figure - actually a quotation from the Credo
of Bruckner’s D Minor Mass - and the continued depth of sound
throughout. The great chorale for brass and Wagner tubas in
the Adagio is the emotional heart of this symphony and
it is supremely moving in Schaller’s hands. I very much admire
the way he dovetails the lyrical sections with the massive,
funereal dignity of those passages echoing the cosmic grief
of Siegfrieds Tod und Trauermarsch. The Scherzo is demonically
driven, forming the perfect contrast to the preceding Innigkeit.
Yet again, I was conscious of little details such as how the
acoustic permits the flickering flute embellishments to pierce
the warm blanket of orchestral sound. The Finale is majestic
and delicate by turns, culminating in a glorious paean to the
divine.
Other, individual recordings may legitimately lay claim to being
superior to those here. I would not suggest that Schaller’s
accounts excel those of the Fourth, Seventh and Ninth Symphonies
by Tennstedt, Karajan and Walter respectively, but if you wanted
a box set of three favourite symphonies played to the highest
standard in best sound, offering the fruits of some of the latest
scholarship regarding a completion of the Ninth, this 4 CD Profil
issue is ideal. Listening to such dedicated, sensitive and musicianly
performances of these three symphonies has re-ignited my appreciation
of Bruckner’s sublime genius.
Ralph Moore
See also review by Michael
Cookson
Philharmonie Festiva/Gerd Schaller 