No, I haven’t made a mistake in the header to this review.
This performance of Bruckner’s Eighth really does
last for just 66 minutes! The reason is nothing to do with eccentrically
fast tempi - though speeds are often too fleet for my taste
in the finale. The fact is that William Steinberg presents here
a sadly truncated version of the score.
The question of Bruckner editions is, frankly, vexed enough
without conductors further complicating things. I’m afraid
I can’t really tell you exactly what version of the score
Steinberg plays. In his generally very informative note Richard
Dyer tells us that the programme book for this concert stated
that Steinberg would be offering the 1890 revision of the score,
in which Bruckner was heavily assisted by Josef Schalk, but
that the announcer for the broadcast - who we don’t hear
- indicated that the performance would be of an edition by Steinberg
himself. For what it’s worth it says on the DVD box that
this is the “2nd revised version”.
Just to deepen the mystery a little further, I have in my collection
another, later performance of the symphony by Steinberg and
the BSO, which is contained in the orchestra’s own Symphony
Hall Centenary Celebration box of discs. That recording
is of a performance given a decade later on 26 February 1972
and it lasts for 74:42. The booklet accompanying that performance
contains the following statement: “The version of Bruckner’s
Symphony No 8 used by William Steinberg in this performance
is his own, using some emendations to the orchestral parts based
on the edition of Leopold Nowak and effectively recreating the
edition of 1892 in a way that Steinberg felt best achieved the
composer’s intentions.” Are you nicely
confused?
It’s possible that Steinberg re-thought his approach to
the symphony in the ten years between the two performances in
question. More likely, I think, is the theory advanced by Richard
Dyer that he was obliged to fit the symphony into the tight
scheduling requirements of the television station. Dyer goes
on to say that Steinberg made the same cuts in other, un-televised
performances of the work during the same series of concerts
but, actually, I suspect his thesis holds good and that Steinberg
simply decided to be consistent for this particular run of performances.
It’s interesting to compare the movement timings for the
1962 and 1972 performances:
Movement |
1962 |
1972 |
I |
14:25 |
14:00 |
II |
13:47 |
15:37 |
III |
20:42 |
25:42 |
IV |
17:10 |
19:20 |
So far as I can tell the discrepancy in timings for the scherzo
is not due to cuts in the 1962 performance: it’s in the
last two movements that the damage is done. The cuts disfigure
Bruckner’s score, I’m afraid and the finale is a
particular travesty.
That’s a pity because much of what is played is done very
well. The first movement is successful and Steinberg injects
good vigour into the scherzo. His treatment of the Adagio is
spacious and noble and here the Boston strings really distinguish
themselves. However, in this movement I began to be irritated
by the piercing tone of the principal trumpeter who seems to
make no effort to blend in with what’s going on around
him - and this problem intensifies in the finale; I wonder what
his BSO colleagues felt. I’m afraid, however, that I part
company with Steinberg in the finale. Too often he presses the
music too urgently to such an extent that the slow, solemn build-up
to the final peroration seems at odds with what has gone before.
I sense no majesty in this reading of the finale.
What about the technical side of the presentation? The sound
is satisfactory, if a bit limited, for the first three movements
but in the finale it sounds more congested. The black and white
pictures offer a pretty conventional presentation of the concert;
one must remember this broadcast took place fifty years ago
and camera techniques have moved on a lot since then. Unfortunately,
the picture is subject to quite a bit of instability in the
third movement and, to a lesser extent elsewhere: I suspect
the source material was starting to decay after so many years.
To be honest, I’m not sure that this performance justifies
its archive reissue. So far as one can tell the Boston Symphony
plays very well - the trumpeter excepted. Steinberg’s
direction is unfussy, direct and thoroughly musical; he was,
after all, a fine conductor, as we know, for example, from the
ICA release of his performance of Beethoven’s Missa
solemnis (review).
However, the cuts in the symphony hobble this issue and one
suspects - nay, hopes - that there are better examples of Steinberg’s
work in the BSO archives which would have stronger claims on
the attentions of collectors. With the best will in the world
this release has only very limited appeal.
John Quinn
Masterwork Index: Bruckner
8
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Boston Symphony Orchestra/William Steinberg 
[66:01] 