Scratch the surface of just about any release from
Brilliant Classics and you will see a major label's name beneath from
which the astute licensing department at Brilliant have sourced their discs.
In exchange for a very competitive price point, albeit with minimal
packaging and brief liner-notes, collectors can source material from Decca,
Chandos, BIS, EMI as was, Dorian, Deutsche Grammophon and ASV to name just a
few. Also, in that list - and less celebrated - are discs from the former
East German company Edel/Berlin Classics. This is proving to be as rich a
source of top-notch material as any - recent sets of Reger and Hindemith
have proved the quality of this label in both musical and technical
terms.
So it proves here. Put aside prejudice and any preconceptions - this set
of Bruckner Symphonies is remarkably fine. This is not Brilliant's
first cycle; their catalogue continues to list the
EMI-sourced second 'complete' cycle from
Eugen Jochum recorded with the Dresden Staatskapelle between 1975 and 1980.
I put complete in inverted commas since they topped-up Symphonies 1-9 from
Jochum with a No.0 from Skrowaczewski and the Saarland RSO.
The set under current consideration is similarly composite; Symphonies 4-9
from Heinz Rögner with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra of which he was
principal conductor from 1973 to 1993, while Symphonies 1-3 are shared
between three conductors, one with the Berlin RSO again and the other two
from the Leipzig Gewandhaus. The absence of a No.0 and the seemingly random
allocation of the early symphonies might rule this out for some collectors.
Indeed, I hesitated before asking for this set to review in the mistaken
belief that it would be some modest mish-mash piled high and sold cheap. How
wrong could I be, yes indeed I am very sad that we are not able to hear
Rögner's conception of the entire cycle but what we have is very fine
indeed and the 'extras' of 1-3 share a similar vision and make
logical couplings.
I will return to the three early symphonies later because, fine though
they are, it is the Rögner performances that command attention. A little bit
of biography first; Heinz Rögner was born in Leipzig in 1929. His
professional career started as a répétiteur for the Weimar Staatskappelle
when he was just eighteen. Before he was thirty he was principal conductor
of the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra before taking over in Berlin in
1973. These Bruckner symphonies were all recorded between 1980 and 1985 in
analogue stereo. There is low-level tape hiss audible although I would have
to say not distractingly so. None of these performances is new to the
catalogue and indeed all are still available in their single-disc original
label format. As far as I can ascertain, this is the first time they have
been gathered together in one place. Apart from price, the immediate benefit
of this is to give the listener a clear sense of Rögner's unity of
conception which is remarkably consistent throughout.
I was interested to read just a couple of days ago my colleague Simon
Thompson's review of Christian Thielemann's new
DVD recording of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony again in
Dresden. In this review he references Karajan's 1988 Vienna
performance on DG as "probably the best performance of this symphony
you’ll find in any format". I would agree it is very fine whilst at the
same time offering the following observation. It seems to me that the
industrial machine that was Deutsche Grammophon in its hey-day took great
care to promote Karajan and his recordings as representing the very pinnacle
of artistic achievement. Much money and time was lavished on this to the
point that - rightly or wrongly - the perception was that for large swathes
of repertoire the Karajan way was the 'best' way. Beethoven
and Bruckner would seem to me the composers who were most swept into this
catch-all approach. By the time Karajan came to complete his
DG Bruckner cycle - and enshrine some of the
performances on film too - this meant a visionary spiritual style epitomised
by super-refined playing and a very extended controlled approach. Watch the
films with the frequent shots of Karajan, eyes all but closed, gestures at a
minimum and one has a sense of him in direct communion with God. This chimes
quite neatly with the received image of the 'simple'
God-fearing composer creating cathedrals in sound. Such was the power of the
DG publicity machine that this has become the default position for both the
performance and understanding of Bruckner.
Rögner, working on the other side of the Iron Curtain, comes to Bruckner
from another earlier performing tradition. One that stresses the humanity of
the composer, warts and all; the occasional clumsiness, the humour and a
quality I never hear in Karajan; the shout out-loud for joy. Rögner's
performances have an extraordinary sense of life-affirmation about them. Not
for a second would I wish to dismiss conductors who follow Karajan's
'other-worldly' approach - with music as complex and rich as
this there will never be one way only - but these are interpretations that
have persuaded me more than any others I know that Bruckner can be vibrant,
vigorous, playful and lyrical as well as epic and awe-inspiring.
I do not intend to write at length in a comparative manner about each
work. As mentioned previously, Rögner has a unified approach to the six
symphonies he conducts. Except for Nos. 7 and 8 where he uses Haas he
prefers the Nowak editions. Overall tempi tend to be quicker than other
conductors. ‘Quick’ as an umbrella term, does no justice to the fluent skill
with which he handles tempi. The control is remarkable - ten years into his
post in Berlin his orchestra follow him with complete unanimity. These are
highly personal accounts with tempi fluctuations used to point thematic
material and larger musical structures most effectively. Orchestral balance
is superbly handled; Rögner encourages the strings in general and the
cellos/basses in particular to play through their lines with a song-like
quality. The brass is beautifully balanced and voiced with climaxes placed
to perfection. One observation would be that the East German horns have that
slightly backward and less focused quality than - at that time - their
Western counterparts. This makes for a gorgeous tonal blend in say the
opening of the Seventh Symphony. Conversely the massed horn group does not
cut through the texture in the closing pages of the outer movement of the
4th symphony in quite the way I would like. Overall, the
engineering is excellent. Documentation is limited but as far as I can
ascertain these performances were recorded in Studio 1 of East German Radio
in Berlin. This studio has an ideal acoustic for this music - rich and full
without being overly resonant. Stereo spread is good with plenty of
front-to-back space too and little sense of multi-mike spotlighting.
Occasionally the timpani - always audible - do not dominate a texture as
some more recent recording might allow. The hammering recapitulation in the
first movement of No.6 is one such moment but this is a small price to
pay.
Clearly at this time the Berlin RSO were in very fine shape. The upper
strings make light work of Bruckner's endlessly varying arpeggiating
figures. Overall,
Symphony No. 4 Romantic is the
performance that impressed me least. This is still fine but without the
exceptional qualities that mark some of the other discs. This is the one
time I am not convinced by the quicker speeds. For the opening movement at
15:15 Rögner is a full five minutes quicker than Tennstedt's live LPO
performance and three faster than Karajan. In contrast, the hunting scherzo
is surprisingly sedate without the sheer thrust of Barenboim in his Chicago
cycle or even Jochum in Dresden. It is in the finale for the first time that
the dividend of the clean textures and flowing speeds pays off. As a
consequence the work feels much more of a bridging piece between the early
dynamism of the first two numbered symphonies and the grandeur of the
closing triptych.
A favourite version of
Symphony No.5 is Jochum's
live performance with the Concertgebouw. This is an extraordinary
performance, burdened with a sense of mortality and struggle - the epitome
of Bruckner as a spiritual journey. Jochum heaves the music from weary
opening to transcendent close - it was his 93rd and final live performance
of this work. Jochum takes 82:30 compared to Rögner's 68:26 - a huge
difference but both versions really work. Rögner finds a lightness of
spirit, an uplifting sense of joy and release quite different from
Jochum's troubled vision. I am not sure that I have ever heard the
strangely perky clarinet motive at the opening of the finale make as much
sense. All too often the extended fugal writing in that movement can feel
functional and strangely unconvincing. By keeping the textures clean and the
contrapuntal writing well-defined this becomes a joyful display of pure
technical skill. Rögner drives through the final chorale. This is the
passage that appalled Bax so much when he described; "at this precise
moment (that) an army corps of brass instruments, which must have been
crouching furtively behind the percussion, arose in their might and weighed
in over the top with a chorale, probably intended by the pious composer as
an invocation to 'Der alte Deutsche Gott'."
The
Sixth Symphony is the one that responds least well to
the Karajan-esque spiritual approach. Rögner is strong and dynamic, the
all-important dotted rhythms never allowed to sag or get soft. There is a
drive and momentum that is superbly sustained and an exuberance – a word not
often associated with Bruckner - which is as effective as it is unexpected.
Before listening to the closing three symphonies I did wonder if
Rögner's approach would pay as great dividends in these three massive
works which for many people would epitomise the 'spiritual'
side of Bruckner's work. I soon came to the conclusion that the
stopwatch alone is a crude and unrepresentative measurement of
Rögner's art. By that standard alone the comparisons to Karajan are
fascinating; in the case of the
Seventh Symphony, aside
from a trademark flowing
Adagio three and a quarter minutes quicker
than Karajan the other time differences are fairly minimal. In the first
movement he is a minute and a half quicker, the scherzo barely half a minute
and the finale twenty five seconds. Karajan's
Adagio crowned
with the (probably) spurious cymbal crash is glorious – a funeral paean to a
lost hero marking as it did Wagner's death. Rögner, substantially
quicker and with no cymbal, places this climax as a high point on the arc of
the movement as opposed to Karajan's lofty peak. For Rögner the
scherzo has an impressive mighty lilt to it – a dance quality that once
again I rarely associate with this composer. There is a similar sprightly
lightness about the finale. Rögner controls the walking bass lines with
great care – phrasing is immaculate and they help propel the music forward
with no feeling of rush or haste. Here, and in all the symphonies the upper
strings help inject a real sense of energy and anticipation whenever they
are asked – as they are a lot by Bruckner – to execute tremolando
figurations. Not only does Rögner ensure these figures always have a shape
but the players execute with a really fast tremolando stroke. This means
that the figures cannot sound too heavy as well as imparting an eager
brilliance to what can feel like a stave-filling waste of space.
The
Adagio of
Symphony No.8 is Rögner's
one exception to the lyrical song-like rule of the earlier symphonies. Here
he takes a full 26:21 to Karajan's 26:07. They both use the Haas
1887/90 conflated version – the Brilliant sleeve has a typo here and refers
to a 1877/90 edition. Perhaps because I have become used to Rögner's
fluent style this movement felt rather static certainly in the context of
the blazing scherzo (listen to the tubas throwing down their bass lines) or
a stunning finale. It is still very good but not quite as convincing as
nearly everything else around it.
As is well documented the
Ninth Symphony caused its
creator no end of problems both technical and spiritual. Recent recordings
of speculative completions of the Finale have proved convincing both
emotionally and from a musicological standpoint. However, the ‘incomplete’
three movement torso remains the most common version performed and that is
what we get here. It is clear that Bruckner was attempting to set out on a
new musical path. As a consequence this is – simply put – his most questing,
questioning and revolutionary music. Famous and favourite versions are Bruno
Walter’s wonderfully rough-hewn interpretation conducting the Columbia
Symphony Orchestra on Sony/CBS and Karajan in Berlin on DG. The latter does
create a transcendent sense of arrival in the closing few pages that is one
of his very greatest achievements on disc. Rögner is very good – details
register as rarely elsewhere; I’m thinking of the dancing pizzicatti in the
trio of the central scherzo. His principal horn is quite beautiful in the
transfigured close. Where he is less successful is in the battering
figurations of the opening of the scherzo or the cataclysmic climax of the
Adagio. For once the fluency and air that he brings to the score
works against its essentially elemental character. I find it a valuable
interpretation because it is the logical completion to the sequence of
symphonies as he has interpreted them. It is simply, with the luxury of
being able to cherry-pick different versions, that this would not be at the
top of a current list.
Turning to the three performances that complete this set; they are more
variable in some respects. In fact there is a continuity in overall style
that gives coherence and value to the overall set. The stand-out performance
of this sub-set is Václav Neumann’s very dynamic version of
Symphony
No.1. Given the twenty-two years he spent as the principal
conductor of the Czech Philharmonic from 1968 it is easy to forget that he
spent four years immediately prior to that in the same role at the Leipzig
Gewandhaus. So at the time of this December 1965 recording it was very much
‘his’ orchestra. This is my first encounter with Neumann in Bruckner and it
is very impressive. The recording is not as refined as those given to Rögner
twenty years later but it is perfectly good and in some ways its
‘penny-plain’ style matches the direct and unfussy Neumann style very well.
The liner mentions the rather curious nickname sometimes given to this work;
‘The Saucy Shrew’ – for once I begin to understand
why such a name
might exist. Certainly, it ties in with Rögner’s vision of lithe and lean
yet powerfully dynamic approach to the later works. Much the same can be
said of Kurt Sanderling’s very forthright approach to
Symphony
No.3, also in Leipzig. He strips away any sense of the overly
reverential – this was the symphony in its first version that was replete
with direct quotes from Wagner – allowing it to stand as a powerful
symphonic statement in its own right. I am no great expert in the minefield
that is Bruckner Symphony editions. Here Sanderling uses what the
www.abruckner.com website describes as; “1890 Thorough revision Bruckner
with Joseph and Franz Schalk Ed. Theodor Raettig.” Sanderling did not record
a great deal of Bruckner but interestingly Symphony No.3 seems to have
fixated him more than any other. The Bruckner website mentioned above lists
no fewer than nine other – all different – recorded versions of this one
work by Sanderling but all using the more standard 1889 revision edited by
Nowak. In fact this Raettig edition is relatively rare in the catalogue and
its use only in older recordings – Szell’s Cleveland version on Sony/CBS is
one – suggests it is now considered flawed. Other considerations are some
noticeable pre-echo/print-through from the original master tapes and a
reasonable but slightly murky recording. The string balance is skewed
towards the front desks and the horns disappear again too much for my
personal preference.
That leaves Franz Konwitschny’s 1951 performance of the
Second
Symphony. The moderate at best sonics here, perfectly reasonable
mono for its time, and the presence of a very bronchial audience rule this
out for me as anything but an archive consideration. Again the interest in
the context of this set is the similar approach to the other conductors and
certainly the power and directness of the performance is impressive.
To cover ‘any other business’; the liner booklet is quite extensive by
Brilliant’s standards. In English only there is a translated small essay on
each work. Since these are all by different authors I assume they have been
lifted from the original releases and are of reasonable interest. The
fleetness of the interpretations allows each symphony to fit neatly and
conveniently on a single disc. Presentation is again the usual Brilliant
preference of a reasonably strong cardboard box with each of the nine discs
in its own card inner sleeve. The back of the sleeve gives the only listing
of track and recording information as well as orchestra and conductor.
In conclusion, it is clear that I have found Heinz Rögner’s traversal of
Symphonies 4-9 to be wholly convincing, refreshing and rewarding. I would
never be able to recommend one single version of works of this scale over
all others let alone a cycle. However if, like me, you are a collector who
returns with unquenchable fascination to these extraordinary works, Rögner
shares a vision that demands consideration. The CD set is retailing around
the £15.00 mark – which is how I listened – with the MP3 set, albeit it with
rather low bit-rates, available from as low as £7.99. Even so, I would
not treat this as a way of getting a bargain Bruckner cycle. Buy it
for the brilliance of Rögner and his excellent Berlin players and consider
the three early symphonies as a bonus.
A set, that by restoring an older performing tradition, challenges
preconceptions about this complex composer and his mighty works.
Nick Barnard
Bruckner symphonies: a survey by Patrick Waller and John
Quinn
Masterwork Index:
Bruckner
symphonies
