Andromeda compilations
spell extra and frustrating work for
the critic. I’ve recently delved into
the Furtwängler-Bruckner discography
when reviewing that recent set. There
I vented spleen on the basking shark
approach to their releases (see review)
and my exasperation was not confined
to merely unpicking the seams of their
choices but worrying away at inappropriate
fillers and the like. And now here is
Knappertsbusch’s Bruckner with rather
more clearly focused bonus tracks –
Liszt and commendable Wagner. But the
problems remain of course, and uppermost
amongst them is the question of the
discography.
Let’s be clearer then,
though I should add that the following
doesn’t pretend to be an exhaustive
comment on available transfers and alternative
performances. The 1954 Munich No.3 is
presumably derived from Music and Arts’
CD 257. Other performances include the
same year’s commercial Decca with the
Vienna Philharmonic and there’s an NDR
from 1962, once on Discocorp. The Munich
performance is rough hewn and rustic.
Ensemble precision, as you would expect,
is not of the highest and Kna’s rallentandi
sometimes catch out the orchestra.
No.4 is the Berlin
Philharmonic performance given in Baden-Baden
during wartime. You might recall this
from another Music and Arts transfer,
this time CD249 and Iron Needle. Two
VPO performances have survived – the
commercial Decca (1955) and the early
sixties performances on Nuova Era. The
1944 performance – the well-worn Schalk-Löwe
1886-87 revision is the edition he habitually
used – is again a roughly played and
only approximate performance. The horns
begin very shakily and though they recover
can’t be relied upon. To compensate
however for technical frailties we have
a powerful Andante, consoling and tragic,
and a meatily demotic scherzo. The finale
is trenchant, dramatic and overwhelmingly
exciting. In fact it’s one of the most
combustible Fourths on record.
No.5 is the Decca commercial
recording of June 1956. A Munich performance
with the city’s Philharmonic and which
dates from 1959 was on Movimento Musica
– yet another interchangeable Italian
privateer. Kna plays the Schalk truncation
which, as with the Fourth, brings forth
all sorts of textual skeletons. Nevertheless
Kna stuck to his guns with regard to
editions and in fairness to him in certain
cases there wasn’t then much viable
alternative. The playing is rapt without
becoming devotional, even in the slow
movement, which is kept moving forward.
It’s played with a true symphonic arch
notwithstanding jibes as to his control,
and even when the structure comes close
to being imperilled by Schalk’s wholesale
revisions Kna emerges triumphant; Bruckner
too.
The Seventh was, yes,
it’s becoming unavoidable, on Music
and Arts CD209 as well as Hunt CD712.
The much less well-known 1963 WDR performance
was on the equally less well-known Seven
Seas label. The Seventh, as with the
Fifth, was given with the Vienna Philharmonic.
This is writ on the widest canvas. Dynamics
and orchestral timbre are both subject
to wide extremes. Kna here operates
on differing principles of expression
to Furtwängler and Abendroth –
the latter’s Scherzo, for example, differs
immensely from Kna’s less countrified
approach. Above all Kna unfolds the
great arching melodies with a passionate
intensity that is always both structurally
coherent and colouristically intense.
Textual problems are not so much of
a concern here of course and what remains
is the profound sense of an immense
span of time unfolded without hindrance
of any kind
Seven Seas have actually
also issued this 1951 Berlin No.8 on
KICC2027 and Hunt likewise on CD711.
Music and Arts issued the Bavarian State
1955 performance, Memories dug out the
VPO, and MCA offered the commercial
1963 Munich recording. It’s as well
that we hear the Berlin performance
and not the Munich because the former
is an infinitely better performed piece
of work and not subject to nearly so
many orchestral mishaps. Of course textual
matters will be of concern to listeners
but seen in the light of his Bruckner
performances generally they are surely
subordinate to the sense of massive
characterisation and eloquence that
the conductor generates. Even if I think
this a lesser performances than say
the Seventh and the Fifth, it still
stands as a kind of monument of Knappertsbusch’s
Bruckner conducting.
As for the Ninth we
revert to Music and Arts CD219 for the
origin of this one, though Foyer has
also issued it [CDS16004]. The only
other Ninth known to me to be around
is the February 1958 Bavarian State
on Hunt CD710 – this company had a run
of Symphonies Nos.7-9. The Ninth is
heard in the Löwe revision. As
with the Fifth Kna employs a full panoply
of expressive devices, huge dynamics
and powerful contrasts, to make his
points. As before and in contradistinction
to the views of many of his detractors,
he does not do so through the expedient
of slow tempi.
The attractiveness
or otherwise of this set is entirely
dependent on how much you have elsewhere.
Nothing here is new to the discography.
The performances are in the main of
outstanding power and eloquence.
Jonathan Woolf
for details
Hans Knappertsbusch 
