Search - Bruckner, Wagner, Mnpo :: Symphony 8 / Siegfried Idyll / Preludes

A Magnificent But Controversial Bruckner 8th

Jeffrey Lipscomb | Sacramento, CA United States | 08/04/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As the last century's most celebrated interpreter of Wagner's Parsifal, Hans Knappertsbusch (1888-1965)was something of a Wise Fool himself. He had a notorious dislike for rehearsals, preferring to let the details work themselves out in actual performance. He had no interest in the preachings of musicologists and remained a steadfast advocate of the "revised" editions of Bruckner's symphonies. He had little enthusiasm for recording in the studio - and few of his efforts in that realm ever had the spontaneity and inspiration of his best concert readings.



Kna had a penchant, especially in his last years, for unusually spacious tempos. This 1963 Bruckner 8th with the Munich Phil. was his final and, for me, his finest studio recording. It is a heavily-weighted, deeply introspective reading that runs over 85 minutes long. To my ears, it has a valedictory aura that is unique, and while it is not my absolutely favorite 8th, I regard it as indispensable to an understanding of the full potential of Bruckner's greatest completed symphony.



This performance has attracted mostly negative reviews in the press. Two of the critics whose writings I most respect have panned it: Henry Fogel of Fanfare ("dreadful") and Rob Cowan of The Gramophone ("unbearably ponderous"). Perhaps the fairest of these detractors was Bruckner expert Jack Diether: "A magnificent bore. But magnificent, surely." In most cases, the objections are directed at the slow tempos, especially the very deliberate finale, while others deride Kna for using the 1892 revised edition. So let's take a brief look at the various "editions" and then discuss the matter of tempos.



There are two autograph editions in Bruckner's own hand: the original 1887 and the heavily revised 1890. 1887 is the longest (about 1850 bars in length). Its rejection by conductor Hermann Levi caused Bruckner to suffer a nervous breakdown, after which he undertook a major revision. In 1887 the 1st mvt. ends fff instead of ppp, the Adagio is placed 2nd instead of third (shades of the Mahler 6th!), and the Scherzo has a completely different Trio section. In 1890 Bruckner reversed the order of the inner movements and composed a completely new Trio. He also cut out about 150 bars, went to triple instead of double woodwinds, and did some other re-scoring. The 1890 revision as Bruckner completed it was published in 1955 as the Nowak Edition.



The Haas Edition was premiered by Furtwangler in 1939 - before then, the only edition performed was the 1892 Oberleithner, which was premiered by Hans Richter and the Vienna Phil. (and used here by Kna). Haas based his edition on the 1890 score, but he put back in 48 "organically vital" bars that Bruckner had excised from the 1887 (10 in the Adagio and 38 in the Finale), adapting them to reflect the later triple woodwind layout, and he actually went so far as to compose a few connecting passages (he also did this to the 2nd symphony). So the Haas is a conflation or synthesis of two different editions.



Finally, the 1892 first performing edition (doctored by Max Oberleithner and Joseph Schalk) is roughly the same length as the 1890 Nowak (a little 7 bar remniscence of the 7th Symphony in the Finale was deleted). The major differences are in scoring, tempo markings, and dynamic shadings (there is also an added cymbal clash - it's heard here at 16:55 in the Finale).



Personally, I find Bruckner's 1890 version a huge improvement over the 1887 but, like Haas, I sorely miss the 48 excised bars. My own preferences are for the Haas and this admittedly bowdlerized but fascinating 1892 debut edition, which is so lovingly conducted by Kna. There is such a clear sense of involvement with the unfolding drama, rough-hewn as it may be, with dramatic underlinings galore, weighty accents, pastoral dreaminess, and an incredibly spacious sense of this music's HUGE span. Kna builds climaxes with inexorable and massive intensity (the brass shadings are simply awesome), and each episode seems to have its own special rhythm, harmony and sonority.



But it is slow. However, slow is a relative term these days: Kna's 85 seems almost sprightly compared to Goodall's dragging 90 minutes or Celibidache's interminable 104 (EMI). Still, Kna's 1963 Munich account is a special view of the 8th. I feel there are seven indispensable readings of this marvelous symphony that demand to be heard. Owning some 25 recordings of the work, and having recently listened to another 20, I can say that the following accounts stand out from everything else I have heard: Horenstein/LSO 1970 live on BBC Legends 4017, an utterly inspired concert that even eclipses his extraordinary live Mahler 8th & Das Lied von der Erde; Kna's 1951 live Berlin Phil. reading on Tahra (all the virtues of this Munich account raised to the next level in a faster live performance); the intense live 1944 Furtwangler/VPO on DG (with stark terrors suggested by no one else); Kempe/Zurich Tonhalle on Somm for perhaps the most exquisite rendition of the slow movement; the 1960 live Schuricht/NDR Hamburg on Urania (a little slower and more inflected than his fine VPO account on EMI), and, as a sharp and dramatic contrast to the foregoing, the more chastely classical van Beinum on Philips, fastest of all (at a mere 72 minutes) and the most thrillingly well-played ever. This 1963 Kna/Munich reveals its own special dark, heavyweight eloquence in unmatched Gothic splendor, and I think it has a deserved place among those other distinguished versions.



Bruckner's 8th is a complex and majestic work that simply has to be heard in more than one version. In my opinion, this Kna is one that deserves your attention. And with it you get some superlative Wagner from one of that composer's most persuasive spokesmen.







"

The Old School

Howard G Brown | Port St. Lucie, FL USA | 12/16/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"... and very old school, indeed. I own a different incarnation of these recordings. The Westminster box (not a space-saving two-fer like this new issue) duplicates the original lp cover from 1962 (Bruckner), and the Wagner selections begin the first disc, almost as overtures to the first movement of the 8th Symphony. I prefer this arrangement. The current issue offers the Lohengren Prelude; the one I have offers the Tristan Und Isolde Prelude & Liebestod instead, but the other two selections are the same.The edition of the Bruckner 8th is the very one Hans Richter used for the 1892 premiere in Vienna -- and Kna received this score from his mentor, Richter, and continued to perform it (and the other "revised versions" instead of the "original versions" that appeared, starting in 1934). We have a valuable view of the music as Bruckner himself heard it at it's first performance. It is virtually identical to the "Schalk edition" published in 1894, and fairly close to what we hear in the Nowak edition of the 1890 version.It is a beautiful performance, filled with obvious affection for the music -- by both conductor and orchestra. It is the Bruckner that central Europe came to know and love between 1890 and 1930 or so -- music that remained a closed book to western Europe and the Americas until well after World War II. Really, it wasn't until the advent of long playing records that music lovers were able to explore this music on their own (in the various versions) and trust their ears, rather than the opinions of critics.One might say these recordings are the sounds Thomas Mann had in mind when he wrote about music in BUDDENBROOKS, THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, DOKTOR FAUSTUS, and in his essay on Wagner. Five stars, then, for the quality of the sound and the music making on these discs. One might almost say, "thanks for the memories.""

Eloquent, Rich, Rewarding

Jeffrey Lee | Asheville area, NC USA | 02/04/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is an unhurried, broad, flowing acccount of the Bruckner Eighth. Where Eugen Jochum gives the impression of an imbedded, coiled spring or trigger, ready to be released in certain places, Knappertsbusch seems more secure in relying on an elastic-like, breathing in and out motion. While slower in tempo than others, he does not lead a dull, plodding performance. Instead, he re-creates an emotionally and spiritually satisfying experience. Bruckner's peaks do not emerge with stark cragginess, but rather with rounded stateliness. Melodies are permitted to unfold in an easy, natural fashion. Textures radiate with a glowing warmth that many others simply do not convey. Additionally, though it would be unlikely for anyone to claim that the Munich Philharmonic is or was in the same class as the Amsterdam Concertgebouw or Berlin Philharmonic, I must say that it performs so marvelously that one might consider its accomplishment here to be as worthy as that of any of the world's greatest orchestras. I can't guarantee that you will wind up appreciating this performance, but its discovery for me has been a bit of a revelation. I also wish to add that Knappertsbusch brings the same, special, glowing qualities to his Wagner performances. Siegfried Idyll is lovely, and the pieces from Lohengrin and Parsifal sound as if they were lifted from an aura of medieval mists."