Anton BRUCKNER (1824-1896)
Symphony No.8 in C minor (1887, 1890) [80:45]
Mozarteumorchester Salzburg/Ivor Bolton
rec. no information supplied
OEHMS CLASSICS OC751 [80:45]
British conductors don't have much of a track record when it comes to Bruckner.
Perhaps Ivor Bolton is in the process of bucking the trend. This is his fifth
Bruckner outing with the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg and follows recordings
of Nos. 5, 3, 7 and 9. As you might expect, the orchestra members clearly
know Bruckner like the backs of their hands, and I often get the feeling in
this recording that Bolton is the outsider bringing, or at least attempting
to bring, new perspectives to the familiar standards.
He insists on keeping the tempos flexible, which gives much of this music
a vitality and unpredictability that is all too rare from other conductors.
But the cost is a lack of discipline, both in terms of the music's architecture
and in the ensemble of the orchestra. Neither is fatal, but the lack of firm
control from the podium is what separates this from the greatest Bruckner
8s, whatever interpretive insights Bolton brings.
His first movement is slow; at 17.5 minutes even slower than Haitink's recent
recording with the Concertgebouw. The slow pace allows Bolton to concentrate
on the details, including the dotted rhythms, which are almost all played
double-dotted, a nod perhaps to the shape of the opening theme. Both of the
outer movements suffer from loose ensemble, which reduces the effect of many
of the climaxes. Bolton often shapes phrases with some fairly extreme rubato,
which sometimes works, but not always. The one place where it is really effective
is in the coda of the first movement. This is the only quiet ending of an
outer movement in any Bruckner symphony, and it is clearly an interpretive
challenge for many conductors. Bruckner doesn't give any tempo indications
here, and even though there is a dim, there is always the danger that
the music is just going to stop without reaching a logical conclusion. But
Bolton carefully structures this page of music. He gradually slows it down,
and really focuses on the shape of each of the descending motifs in the middle
strings. It is the most convincing reading of the passage I've heard, and
is only slightly spoilt by a messy last chord from the strings.
The Scherzo is a fairly standard reading. There are some intemperate outbursts
from the brass here and there, but order is more or less maintained. The Adagio
is a real treat. Bolton takes it quite fast, relatively speaking, but aims
throughout for clarity of line and texture. This is in stark contrast to the
opening movement, where the tempos were slower and much more variable. But
as with the first movement, Bolton is clearly trying something different here,
an unsentimental approach where the notes are left to speak for themselves.
In the Finale we are back to the big, brash textures of the opening. If I've
one complaint about the Finale it is a lack of grandeur. We get plenty of
volume from the brass in the climaxes, and the build-ups are often carefully
paced. But there is little sense of architecture, of the climaxes informing
and punctuating the rest of the music.
The orchestra are on good form, although the ensemble in the strings often
leaves much to be desired. The brass have a big, warm sound in the quieter
passages - excellent Wagner tubas in the Adagio - but can sound coarse in
the louder sections. The sound quality is reasonable for a live recording,
but there is little on the technical side of this disc to suggest the audiophile
reputation of the Oehms label.
Mixed feelings, then, about Ivor Bolton's Bruckner 8. There are a few movements
of staggering interpretive originality, not least the coda of the first movement
and the detail in the Adagio. Bolton's variable tempos are behind many of
these interpretive insights, but they are also responsible for a lack of structural
logic in the outer movements and the reduced impact of many of the climaxes.
Probably the best Bruckner 8 you will ever hear conducted by a Brit, although
that isn't saying much.
Gavin Dixon
Probably the best Bruckner 8 you will ever hear conducted by a Brit, although
that isn't saying much.