BRUCKNER FROM THE ARCHIVES, VOL. 3 = Symphony No. 3 in D Minor; Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major, “Romantic” – SOMM Ariadne 5029-2 (2 CDs = 57:49; 59:28, full credits below) (6/1/24) [Distr. by Naxos] ****:
SOMM extends its ongoing series of Bruckner performances, from the fabulous John F. Berky Archive collection of 11,000 concerts, as part of the celebrations surrounding the composer’s 200th birthday in 1824. This third installment includes the respected work of conductor Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (1900-1973), whose tenure in Hamburg, 1945-1971, raised the status of the NDR Symphony to a level competitive with the Berlin Philharmonic. The ensemble under Schmidt-Issertstedt had given the premiere performance of the Oeser Edition of the Symphony No. 3 soon after its 1950 publication. As for conductor Volkmar Andreae (1879-1962), he had established himself as an advocate for the music of Anton Bruckner early in the 20th Century, serving as director of the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, 1906-1949, including the Swiss premieres of Bruckner’s 4th and 9th Symphonies that occurred in the course of 250 Bruckner performances. Andreae’s cycle of complete Bruckner symphonies with the Vienna Symphony in 1953 was broadcast by Austrian radio.
Schmidt-Isserstedt and his Munich Philharmonic perform (12 December 1966) the 1879 edition of Bruckner’s Third Symphony, which relies much upon the edition Bruckner had produced two years earlier, in 1877. It had been in May 1874 that Bruckner inscribed his dedication to his musical idol, Richard Wagner, whom Bruckner addressed as “the incomparable world-famous and sublime master of poetry and musical art, in deepest reverence.” But after 1875, Bruckner persistently considered the Third “in the process of improvement,” constantly revising movements – especially the last – on the basis of discussions and criticisms from former pupils, like Franz Schalk. Bruckner instructed Hermann Levi in 1893 to perform a late revision that he felt “incomparably better,” and still revisions continued until 1890.
From the onset of the mysteriously (string ostinato) grand first movement, with its initial trumpet tune, Schmidt-Isserstedt keeps a tight rein on the music’s mercurial structure, moving through periods of vehement, trumpet assertion and consoling chorale-motifs. Schmist-Isserstedt milks the interior tone-colors, rife with old-world sentiment. The four-beat pulsation assumes he “fateful” character from Beethoven, whilst elsewhere in the score lie various, quick allusions to Wagner operas. Aerial episodes seem to rise from lofty venues in the Austrian mountains, detached from the “sea troubles” of which Hamlet laments. Martial impulses insinuate themselves, pizzicato, into the score, again ameliorated by rising, gripping, crescendo-laden urges to might, presumably Heaven-sent. At the re-entry of the main theme in A major, the beauty of the Munich orchestra’s homogenous tone emerges in full glory. The momentum ow becomes pointed to the coda, delayed momentarily by a call from Nature, only to catapult forward in an abrupt, resolute frenzy.
The Adagio in E-flat major purports to lament the death of the composer’s mother, by way of her birthday. Schmidt-Isserstedt exacts a soulful, visionary sensibility from this music, with its pregnant hesitations and shifts of modality. The blend of competing string choirs, mixed with forest woodwinds, creates a melancholy serenade of rare, persuasive power. There remains a strong suspicion that Wagner harmony from both Tristan and Die Walküre play an integral role in the evolving drama, by way of emphatic dissonances and moments of blazing declamation. A sustained sense of peace and spiritual reconciliation settles into the final page.
Schmidt-Isserstedt initiates a rhythmic, driven volcano of sound to initiate the Scherzo, the dynamics measured out in competing orchestral choirs, strings, timpani, and brass, highly syncopated. The swagger of the ensuing Trio section ingratiates us with an Austrian Ländler of rustic gentility. The musical eddy that marks the first theme returns with fervent energy and exuberant, restive power. The Munich trumpet work provides a real, biting sonority before the abrupt final chords of the coda.
The manic impetus extends suddenly into the final movement, Finale: Allegro when, almost counter-intuitively, a polka in F# emerges in balance with a chorale-motif. Perhaps Knappertsbusch in his Vienna Philharmonic performance on Decca catches more of the sly, flirtatious humor that invests this gambit from Bruckner, but the transparency of Schmidt-Issertstedt’s textures win us over. The forward motion breaks off, introducing a quit moment not far from the Forest Murmurs in Wagner, when the eruption of emotion flares forth once more, now with something like vengeance. A new theme, in the cellos and pizzicato violins, enters with a chorale’s promise of spiritual repose; but this effects the more “profane” return of the polka, a rural Eden prone to rhythmic fluctuations. Bruckner characterized the confluence of impulses, polka and chorale, as “the joy of the world and the sadness and pain of life.” The audience ovation at the last chord testifies to a success the symphony barely knew while Bruckner lived, except in Vienna under Hans Richter in 1890.
Anton Bruckner
As is well documented, the etiology of the Bruckner Fourth Symphony, originally scored in 1874, proved long and convoluted, having been subject to revisions as late as 1887-1888. Its 1890 debut in Munich under Franz Fischer achieved the kind of success for which Bruckner intended it, inscribing the title “Romantic” to promote its popularity. It is the Haas edition of 1880 that Andreae presents here in performance. Among the many glorious, recorded documents in my experience, certainly those by Wilhelm Furtwaengler, Hans Knappertsbusch, Bruno Walter, and Istvan Kertesz stand out as especially sympathetic to the epic, pantheistic aims the music exalts. For this selected performance, chosen by Lani Spahr and Siva Oke, we have the eminent Brucknerian Volkman Andreae before the Munich Philharmonic, 16 January 1958.
Over a subtle string ostinato, the solo horn seems to call across a vast space set in imposing mountain heights, proceeding Bewegt, nicht zu schnell, as directed. With a vehement rush, the music surges forward, a proclamation of elemental power. The secondary theme in D-flat major, is based on two notes staccato and a downward leap of the interval of sixth, echoes – according to Bruckner – a songbird endemic to European high altitudes. The presence of more disturbed forces corresponds to the fascination with Nature’s fury we find in Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” and in the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. The urgency Andreae invokes in the course of the development becomes at moments overwhelming, a sound threatening and celebratory, at once. And ever, the horn motif, surrounded by plastic and radiant harmonies, achieves its own apotheosis. The songful momentum Andreae maintains in the course of the movement feels natural and unaffected by subjective excesses. As Andreae approaches the potent coda, the brass punctuations increase their razor-like entries, the woodwinds softening the aura as the strings eddy and crescendo, tutti, to a brazen climax resonant with the initial horn motif.
If any one movement deserves the epithet “Romantic,” the second movement Andante quasi allegretto (in C minor) deserves pride of place. Andreae observes the allegretto designation, maintaining a healthy, walking pace that does not shy away from grand appreciation of the natural vistas before him. The five part, ternary form evolves in the manner of Schubert, lyrical, healthy, optimistic. Again, the temptation to equate this extended meditation with Wagner’s “Forest Murmurs” beckons us, though its martial procession seems a memento to the second movement of Schubert’s “Great Symphony” in C Major. The patented Bruckner superimposition of motifs atop one another leads to a fervent stretto crescendo effect, the Munch trumpets and assisting horns ablaze.
Enter the famous “hunt” Scherzo movement in E-flat major, filled with energetic, liberated motion, often churning in its filigree. The entire atmosphere seems infiltrated by the excitement of the chase, the thrill of command. The Trio section in G-flat major celebrates Austria’s love of rustic dance, here slowed down by Andreae to approximate the sound of a mountain hurdy-gurdy. Bruckner mentioned that the music might accompany a midday repast. The fierce hunt motif returns, piping and whistling with pliant flexibility of motion, especially in the trumpets.
A sense of dire monumentality opens the Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht su schnell, a combination of mountain panoramas and deep, even luxuriant, personal meditation. Andreae does not dawdle, but he urges the music forward in Bruckner’s typical arrangement of emotive periods. Sudden, volcanic eruptions might invoke John Milton’s “Pandemonium in Heaven,” given the sonic deluge unleashed prior to the serene moments that ensue. Bruckner had suggested for his outer movements something like a knightly pageant’s unfolding; at other times, he indicated that the symphonic textures capture a serenade’s sensibility. The darker colors of the last movement revert to Nature’s hegemony in all occasions material, even if Her source lies in the Beyond. The brass work late in the movement, set as brazen antiphons in double-tongued articulation, sends us a message of a virtuoso ensemble at work. The contrast to the delicate swirls of the Munich strings could not be greater, especially when the violas and cellos sing chorale-fashion. The graduated build-up the soaring coda proves mesmeric, an echo of the initial horn call, now resonant with Wagnerian ambitions. Himmel hoch!
—Gary Lemco
BRUCKNER FROM THE ARCHIVES, VOL. 3
Symphony No. 3 in D Minor, WAB 103;
NDR Symphony Orchestra/ Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt/
Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major, WAB 104 “Romantic”
Munich Philharmonic/ Volkmar Andreae
