Anton BRUCKNER (1824 – 1896)
Symphony No. 9 in D minor
WAB 109 [59:01]
Philharmoniker Hamburg/Simone Young
rec. Laeiszhalle, Hamburg, Germany, 2014
OEHMS CLASSICS OC693 SACD [59:01]
This disc represents the penultimate release in Simone Young's
survey of the complete Bruckner Symphonies - only No. 5 waits to be released
later this year. It is still relatively unusual for such a survey to include
all of Bruckner's symphonies including the so-called Numbers
0 and 00 let alone the various revisions and editions. I have not heard any
of the previous releases although they seem to have gained positive reviews.
Some basic house-keeping first; Young performs the 'standard'
three movement version of the Ninth with no speculative finale completion.
The recording is based on live performances but such is the skill of digital
editors now that the presence of an audience is all but impossible to detect.
The disc is a 5.0 SA-CD - I was not able to listen to that layer but I have
to say the actual sound of the Philharmoniker Hamburg is hugely impressive;
very Germanic with rich weight to the lower end of the orchestra, exceptionally
well balanced and controlled brass, warm lyrical winds and neat nimble string
playing.
Clearly Young is a thoughtful musician and one who has had great success across
a range of repertoire including Bruckner. That said, I have to say I have
rarely enjoyed a performance of Bruckner 9 less. With such a mighty and complex
work there will never be one right or wrong way but Young left me cold to
the point of irritation. In essence it seems to me that Young seeks differentiation
between sections where other conductors seek unity. In isolation each of these
sections are impressive and indeed beautiful - although I am not sure Bruckner
9 should always be beautiful - but I find they do not cohere. Things
start well with the sheer quality of recording and playing impressing. The
liner-note refers to the opening section as "heroic-monumental"
which sums up Young's approach rather well; broad and dignified, weighty
and powerful. The blending and control of the brass choir is particularly
well handled. In strong contrast is the "Gesangperiode" section
that appears at bar 97 (track 1 3:50). For some reason Young micro-manages
this song theme so that the last quaver/eighth note of every bar is given
a noticeably extended tenuto. For sure it makes a contrast with the implacable
flow previously and any musical phrase needs an element of ebb and flow but
this is simply fussy. All credit to the Hamburg players who perform it with
total conviction but I must admit I have never heard the like before and it
does not even begin to work for me. Following a score can be both illuminating
and disappointing. There can be times when it becomes clear that performers
are taking liberties - for good or ill - with a score but more often than
not it can be surprising how much detail is glossed over. For sure Young does
not 'gloss' and she does impose her own personality on the work
but not always to its benefit. With a score to hand I turned to several other
well-known Bruckner conductors. Not one of them from Wand to Karajan,
Walter,
Jochum (in Dresden
or Berlin), Tintner,
Rogner,
Barenboim
or Maazel sectionalises the work as Young does let alone impose such mannered
phrasing in this section. The list above covers a wide interpretative range
from Walter's marvellously craggy reading to Rogner's fleet
unfussy performance with Karajan's powerfully polished version in between.
Of them all, it is hard not to hear in Wand's live performance with
the NDR Symphony Orchestra in 1993 the most extraordinary binding together
of the entire work into a coherent whole. Perhaps I am just too much of an
admirer of this organic approach to be able to appreciate Young's opposite
conception.
I mentioned the beauty of the sound here - which it most certainly is - but
I would argue that both in the second movement scherzo and more critically
at the grinding climax of the Adagio this works against the essence of the
symphony. Walter in his famous recording with the Columbia Symphony finds
a clashing intensity in the brass chords at the opening of the second movement
which is quite smoothed away by Young. She seems more concerned with making
the string figurations incredibly short - yes there are dots over the notes
but no excessive marking. More importantly, why no contrast between ff
at figure L [track 2 3:57] and the carefully marked fff twelve bars
later? Then - a little bugbear of mine - the written out 4 bars of general
pause are cut short before Young launches into the trio. Yes it is marked
"schnell" but I do not think I have heard the contrast between this
movement's sections so marked. We hear superbly neat and articulate
playing from the Hamburg strings but it seems a different piece. Wand is quicker
in the opening section and steadier in the trio - he also cuts the general
pause - but his recording benefits from greater inner detail with brass counterpoint
more clearly defined and the sections flow together. Young, having launched
into such a sprightly trio executes a huge - unmarked - rallentando into the
secondary theme at letter B (track 2 4:57) to give the strings a near Rachmaninovian
gushing intensity. Again in isolation this is impressive playing but not what
I understand this music to be. Wand, from his steadier basic pulse, prepares
for B by holding his tempo back even a fraction more a full sixteen bars earlier
which allows the music to flow into B. The steadier trio tempo suggests to
me a simpler, near naive music that in its simplicity provides the greatest
possible contrast to the tortured batterings of the main scherzo. Wand - is
the master of nuance: details are teased out, tempi are nudged, musical paragraphs
flow within movements and across whole works. Young seems to be point-making
and telling us that she is point-making in the process.
This recurs in the Adagio. The quality and sustained warmth of the
Hamburg orchestra is a joy in itself. My concerns about the homogenising effect
of the blended sound recur especially at the famous cathartic climax at bar
206. Robert Simpson in his book "The Essence of Bruckner" (published
Victor Gollancz, 1967 rev. 1992) describes it as "... the tearing of
a veil ... the opening of the gates of death." That is a certainly a
powerfully evocative description - rather more prosaically Bruckner piles
a C sharp minor triad against an F sharp diminished with the C naturals giving
a "missed octave". Walter - helped to some degree by the lack of
technical sophistication of the 1960 recording - has a volcanic, elemental
directness that never fails to move me. Likewise Wand produces a climax of
near apocalyptic power, the brass slamming against each other in a battle
of harmonic wills. Young in comparison is so controlled, so carefully balanced
and beautifully executed that the sheer drama of the moment is all but lost.
I am not sure I have ever heard the dissonance of this climax sound so euphonious.
It's more a twitching of a curtain than the tearing of the veil. The
very end of Young's performance is stunningly executed by the Hamburg
horn section. Theirs is fantastically assured playing of rock-solid security
and the final chord is absolutely nailed in every respect. Again this very
assurance seems to work against the aching beauty of the closing pages. Wand
finds a fragile humanity and poignancy in these bars that transcends criticism
of an unwritten rallentando here, a compressed bar's rest there. Why
I am willing to forgive - indeed embrace - Wand's digressions from
the score and not Young's I cannot really explain. Perhaps it is simply
because I am convinced by Wand's overarching view of the work and not
by Young's. Although I have chosen to concentrate on a direct comparison
between Young and Wand I have to say I would choose any of the interpretations
I mentioned earlier before this new one for all the qualities of the recording
and playing displayed here.
The liner from Oehms has quite an extended essay by Michael Lewin in English
and German. This essay is slightly curious in that elements of it repeat itself
and read as though two separate articles have been brought together without
sufficient re-editing. Also, Lewin seems to buy into the idea that Bruckner
sanctioned the use of the Te Deum as a substitute finale. In the
forward to my Eulenberg edition of the work Hans F. Redlich writes: "There
is no shred of truth in the assertion that Bruckner ever wanted the Te
Deum to be used to round off the incomplete ninth Symphony." I am
not well enough read in the Bruckner literature to know which opinion currently
holds strongest sway but my feeling has always been that the Te Deum
option seems like a sticking-plaster solution at best. I have found the conjectural
completions of the Symphony's finale to be interesting but ultimately
sophisticated pastiches - Simpson's phrase not mine - so the presence
or not of a finale in a recording will not sway me in its favour. The recent
Aarhus performance from John Gibbons (review
review)
was unremarkable enough in the first three movements to make the value of
the completed finale rather too little too late. Certainly Young's
performance has a clear conception superbly executed. Others will have to
decide if her vision chimes with their own.
Not a version I would ever choose to return to.
Nick Barnard
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